Jennifer Schmidt

Dr. Jennifer Schmidt recently gave two presentations on environmental hazards. The first was with the Alaska Fire Science Consortium’s spring workshop where she presented on “Arctic Urban Adaptations (AURA): a co-production framework for addressing multiple changing environmental hazards.” The slides for the presentation are available for download and the video recording of the presentation is above. 

A new paper by ISER faculty, Professors Matt Berman, Bob Loeffler, and Jennifer Schmidt, describes some of the long-term effects of the Red Dog Mine on local workers and communities.  The researchers used a unique data set to follow workers at the Red Dog Mine from local villages for 14 years.  The research focused on these questions:  what percentage of the mine workers live within the region, and what percentage of the total payroll do local workers receive?

Drs. Katie Cueva and Jen Schmidt of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) traveled to Northwest Arctic Alaska to discuss cancer education for high school students. Cancer is the leading cause of death in the state, and Alaska Native people bear a disproportionate burden of mortality and cancer risk factors. Working with communities to understand and prevent cancer can help lower the unnecessary loss of life from this disease. 

ISER's Dr. Jen Schmidt traveled to Tanana this past October to discuss the results of an ongoing fuel meter data collection project alongside Alaska Center for Energy and Power’s (ACEP) Alana Vilagi and Baxter Bond. 

The Institute of Social and Economic Research’s Dr. Tobias Schwoerer, Dr. Jennifer Schmidt, and Kyle Borash alongside the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Dr. Joseph Little, published a new article, “Hitchhikers on floats to Arctic freshwater: Private aviation and recreation loss from aquatic invasion”, in the latest issue of Ambio.

This summer, Alaska’s high temperatures broke records causing more Alaskans than ever to experience the effects of widespread wildfires. Wildfires, along with unstable permafrost, and rain-in-winter are natural hazards of climate change that put residents and property at risk. Assessing the costs, risks, and actions necessary to adapt to or mitigate damage from these hazards in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon, is the subject of a newly funded 4-year, $1.1 million National Science Foundation project, led by ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt. 

ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Management and Policy, visited the area damaged by fire in Anchorage this summer with members of the Rabbit Creek Community Council to observe the damage and support their efforts at preventing fires in their south Anchorage community. 

ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Management and Policy, is working with researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Center for Energy and Power and College of Engineering and Mines to examine food, energy and water (FEW) security issues in rural Alaska and determine how small-scale renewable energy might ease the issues.