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Past Issues
Studio group at the NOAA Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (Courtesy: Matthew Jull)
Sept-Oct 2025
Fall 2025 Research Studio
Fall 2025 marked the second year of City Built on Thawing Ground, a traveling research studio led by Leena Cho and Matthew Jull. The studio examined how permafrost thaw, snow redistribution, and surface water processes are impacted by the built environment. Building on National Science Foundation Navigating the New Arctic (NSF NNA) observation sites, students combined site documentation and targeted thaw probing with interpretation of sensor data to map surface conditions to support planning and design work at parcel and neighborhood scales in
Utqiaġvik, Alaska.
Keep reading
Polar bear sighting. (Credit: Valentina Ekimova)Sept-Oct 2025
Snow and Ice: Tracking Infrastructure Impact in Arctic Aquatic Systems (Part II)
From 30 September to 7 October, Utqiaġvik, Alaska, greeted us with a surprise: about 3 inches of shorefast ice on our study sites. At the same time last year, these shores were only lightly iced even later in October, so this early, solid ice cover was not what we expected. Our targets were the same three water bodies, now in their early winter mode: Imikpuk Lake, Middle Salt Lagoon, and Isatkoak Lagoon. Keep reading
Standing water and a leaning road sign near the new cemetery in Utqiaġvik. (Credit: Kenzie Nelson)
June 2025
Water, water, everywhere: Tracking Infrastructure Impact in Arctic Aquatic Systems (Part I)
For their summer sampling campaign, the aquatic team walked the shores of three of
Utqiaġvik’s large water bodies to gather key water quality parameters that will help us understand the chemical signatures of seasonal rhythms, human activity, and permafrost dynamics. Keep reading
A BigDot PM sensor (circled in red) mounted at a busy intersection in
Utqiaġvik. (Credit: Mirella Shaban)
May-June 2025
Finding Air Quality Hotspots to Inform Dust MitigationAnother UVA|ARC team traveled to Utqiaġvik this spring to deploy “BigDot” particulate matter (PM) sensors in areas deemed to be potential or observed hotspots for dust, and therefore, for poor air quality.
Eighteen sensors were deployed across the city. Keep reading
May 2025
Social Scientists go to the Field
In mid-May, social scientists Hannah Bradley and Cheri Johnson traveled to Utqiaġvik alongside our colleagues from the Environmental Science and Architecture departments to continue our social studies of how science works. Watching scientists do science is just one aspect of our research, and it's great to be in the field and lend a hand or hold a ladder. Our social science observations covered two aspects of our research...
Keep reading
Here, Howard Epstein and Matthew Jull work on the sensor base station at Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital, while UVA social scientists observe. Our ASNA partners generously lent us the ladder! (Credit: Hannah Bradley)
Postdoctoral researchers measures snow depth with an avalanche probe in late May. (Credit: Hannah Bradley)
May 2025
Snow, Pixels, and Probes: Ground-Truthing in UtqiaġvikOver a week in May, the team
collected over 900 snow depth and density measurements spanning open tundra, built environments, and zones affected by wind redistribution
in Utqiaġvik. Keep reading
Howie Epstein checks data loggers at the snow fence near the hospital
in Utqiaġvik. (Credit: Valentina Ekimova)
May 2025
Sensor Reset
Maintaining the Utqiaġvik Sensor Array includes routine tasks like changing batteries and replacing sensors that have stopped communicating.
We have also been working to make the network more robust.
The UVA|ARC team is investigating what types and numbers of sensors to install to enhance the
Utqiaġvik Sensor Array
over the next year.
Keep reading
Book Release
Design and the Built Environment of the ArcticEdited by Leena Cho and Matthew Jull
Eleven new and original contributions from leading and emerging scholars and practitioners on the Arctic at the nexus of unprecedented socio-environmental transformations.
ISBN 978-1-032-66770-6
Projects
Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Track 1: Examining the Built and Natural Environments with an Utqiaġvik Sensor Array (BNE-USA)
UVA Environmental Institute Climate Collaborative:
Snow, Water, and Permafrost in Arctic Communities (SNOWPAC)
Arctic Design Studios
Bridging Art & Science Sympsoium, 2021
The Arctic Research Center (ARC) is a platform for collaborative Arctic research at the University of Virginia. Building on decades of Arctic-focused research, education, and outreach efforts, and spanning wide-ranging disciplines including environmental sciences, architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, social sciences, data sciences and the arts, UVA-ARC brings together academic, institutional and community collaborators to address urgent issues and share knowledge.
& People
Howard Epstein, PhD
UVA Environmental Sciences
Leena Cho, MLA
UVA Landscape Architecture &
Arctic Design Group
Matthew Jull, PhD
UVA Architecture & Arctic Design Group
Luis Felipe R. Murillo, PhD
University of Notre Dame,
Anthropology
& Technology Ethics Center
Caitlin D. Wylie, PhD
UVA Engineering and Society
Claire Griffin, PhD
Allegheny College, Environmental Science and Sustainability
Hannah Rose Bradley, Postdoc
PhD in Anthropology
Valentina Ekomova, Postdoc
PhD in Petroleum Engineering,
Cheri Johnson, Posdoc
PhD in Science, Technology, and Society
Joyce Fong, PhD candidate in
Constructed Environments
MacKenzie Nelson, PhD candidate in Environmental Sciences
Mirella Shaban, PhD candidate in Environmental Sciences and Data Science
Jana Peirce, Project manager