Workshop Leaders
Dr. Amy Lauren Lovecraft is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). She is also affiliated faculty with the International Arctic Research Center and the Arctic and Northern Studies program. Beginning 1 July 2018, she will become the Interim Director of the Center for Arctic Policy Studies at UAF. In her research, Dr. Lovecraft explores power dynamics in social-ecological systems. In particular, how problems are defined and policies designed in light of climate change and development uncertainties in the Arctic? Her scholarship explores this question from transdisciplinary standpoints seeking to bridge the domains of science, policy, and civic life. Her scholarship has been published as book chapters and in journals such as Arctic, Marine Policy, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Polar Geography, Policy Studies Journal, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She was co-editor of the transdisciplinary volume North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing Social-Ecological Systems (Autumn 2011) that developed from collaboration during the International Polar Year.
Dr. Lovecraft has been a Dickey Fellow in Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Norway at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO). She has served two terms as a member of the U.S. National Academies Polar Research Board and currently serves Nordforsk in evaluating the Nordic Arctic Centres of Excellence (2017-2021). In 2017 she was elected to the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research. Most recently, she was the Principle Investigator on a National Science Foundation grant (2013-2017) – Northern Alaska Scenarios Project (NASP). She led an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students working with resident experts in the Northwest Arctic and North Slope Boroughs on participatory scenarios focused on the question "what is required for healthy sustainable communities in Arctic Alaska by 2040?" Her favorite Nordic specialty is Leipäjuusto.
Dr. Marc Müller-Stoffels is the Founder and CEO of denamics GmbH which combines technical expertise in renewable energy systems design with the ability to develop strategic scenarios for long-term sustainable development. In past roles Marc has served as Research Assistant Professor and Program Director for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power and Chairman of evolve:IT, Complex Systems Solutions which specialized in the development of genetic algorithm solutions and produced the ScenLab software tool that supports the quantitative consistency and robustness analysis underlying SEARCH's scenario development process. He received his PhD in Physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Convener
Dr. Brendan P. Kelly is the Executive Director of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change and Professor of Marine Biology at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also serves as a Senior Fellow with the Center for the Blue Economy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. A marine ecologist with a focus on sea ice environments, he has participated in and led collaborative research in the North Pacific Ocean, Arctic Ocean, Sea of Okhotsk, Baltic Sea, and Antarctica. He has served as Deputy Director for Arctic Sciences, National Science Foundation; Assistant Director for Polar Science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and as a science adviser to indigenous organizations in Alaska. Currently, he serves on the National Academy of Sciences’ Polar Research Board and as a member of the Positions Statement Committee of the American Geophysical Union. Dr. Kelly received degrees in Biology from the University of California Santa Cruz (B.A.), the University of Alaska Fairbanks (M.S.), and Purdue University (Ph.D.)
Workshop Staff
Helen Wiggins (SEARCH Project Office)
Director of Programs
Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S.
Brit Myers (SEARCH Project Office)
Project Manager
Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S.
Douglas Cost
Assistant Professor
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Andrea Fisher
Graduate Student
Middlebury Institute of International Studies
Valerie Cleland
Graduate Student
University of Washington
Michael Diamond
Graduate Student
University of Washington
Christina Dietzen
Graduate Student
University of Washington
Alexandra Long
Graduate Student
Middlebury Institute of International Studies
Lauren Schmeisser
Graduate Student
University of Washington
Judy Twedt
Graduate Student
University of Washington