NSF project wraps up by sharing back
While our Utqiaġvik research continues through the UVA Environmental Institute’s SNOWPAC project, we capped off our NSF-funded Utqiaġvik Sensor Array project with a week of meetings and presentations in May to share research findings and design strategies with community partners in Utqiaġvik. Our visit coincided with the Arctic ACTION Workshop, where we presented a keynote talk, participated on several panels, and hosted a community dinner catered by a popular Thai restaurant.The NNA project, Understanding the Changing Natural-Built Landscape in an Arctic Community: An integrated sensor network in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, started with three key objectives: 1) to understand the interactions between infrastructure and permafrost landscapes in an Arctic city; 2) to apply that learning to design guidelines for improved management of an urban environment; and 3) to study how researchers and residents communicate across disciplines and cultures to co-produce knowledge that benefits communities and informs science.
The team’s goal in wrapping up the five-year project was to provide our partners in Utqiaġvik with site-specific data, insights, and design strategies for managing infrastructure on permafrost in the context of a warming Arctic. As a first step, we met online with City Mayor Asisaun Toovak back in March to present overall project takeaways and student-developed conceptual designs for the Imaqsaun Road Cemetery, which the city plans to expand while also addressing significant permafrost thaw and surface water ponding at existing gravesites.
After sharing their findings, the project team asked: Are these useful? What would you like more information on? And, what type of report or deliverable would be most useful? To encourage public dialog about cemetery remediation and expansion options, the mayor suggested tabloid-size printouts of slides to share with stakeholders, a poster that could be displayed at City Hall, and an in-person presentation to the cemetery's volunteer gravediggers to get their input during the team's upcoming visit to Utqiaġvik.
Held on May 27 in the City Council Chambers, the meeting between gravediggers and researchers was one of the highlights of the team's week in Utqiaġvik. In an Arctic ACTION workshop discussion later in the week, Mayor Toovak described it as an "Aha" moment where you could see real knowledge exchange and co-production taking place. (Co-production describes a collaborative model of scientific inquiry where researchers work in partnership with non-academic knowledge holders to generate, implement, and apply findings.)
The discussion with the city’s gravediggers was just one of many meetings during the project’s capstone visit to Utqiaġvik. The team also presented project results and design concepts to the Barrow Utilities & Electrical Cooperative Inc. (BUECI), Ilisaġvik College, Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority, and the Arctic Slope Native Association, while a presentation to the NSB Public Works department was cancelled due to scheduling issues. Members of the UVA team, including graduate students Mirella Shaban and MacKenzie Nelson, were invited to back to share their findings on water and air quality monitoring with NSB public health nurses and the water treatment team at BUECI.
Participating in the Arctic ACTION workshop gave UVA researchers an opportunity to share their findings more broadly and to learn from Indigenous representatives from other Arctic and near-Arctic coastal communities facing similar challenges to Utqiaġvik. Organized by the NNA ACTION project at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the May 28-31 event brought researchers from multiple universities and agencies together with community members from Utqiaġvik, Point Lay, Gambell, Hooper Bay, St. Paul, and Newtok/Mertarvik, Alaska, and Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, Canada.
The workshop’s goal was to move from understanding change toward taking action by strengthening relationships and identifying practical, locally relevant solutions that advance community resilience and Arctic science. On May 29, during a day focused on permafrost and infrastructure solutions, Howard Epstein and Matthew Jull presented the UVA team's work on "Adaptability Planning: Snow, meltwater, and infrastructure practices for permafrost management," and Leena Cho shared design considerations and strategies informed by landscape architecture and urban planning in a panel on above-ground water and sewer design.
UVA postdoc Cherí Johnson joined Mayor Toovak on the panel on knowledge co-production, where she shared personal reflections as an Indigenous scholar and insights from her research on "boundary walking" between Indigenous and Western natural science knowledge systems in the context of climate change. That evening, the UVA-ARC team hosted a dinner for both workshop participants and the team’s Utqiaġvik project partners that was catered by Thai Corner, a popular local food truck.
Reflecting later, team members felt the May trip was the project’s strongest yet for community engagement. We attribute this to more intentional planning and to the stronger relationships built over several years. Other factors for success:
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Tailoring presentations to each partner with information
that is directly relevant to their organization and their community.
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Using plain language to communicate scientific
information is also important, while providing options for accessing more
detailed data and results.
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Presenting key takeaways in accessible,
memorable, shareable formats such as postcards and posters.