All of the US is seeing significant demographic changes that will shape the workforce over the next 20 years, but these changes are especially significant in Alaska. Moreover, Alaska's population is strongly influenced by migration to and from Alaska. The shortage of workers during the Pandemic Recession may be in part a "tipping point" effect, where declines in the workforce that would have happened over several years were accelerated by COVID-19 changes. A February 2022 presentation by Dr. Ralph Townsend examined the implications of several demographic changes for the future of Alaska's workforce.
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Advances in technology have made it no longer possible to achieve dueling mandates required of the Census Bureau, said Professor Matthew Berman in a recent presentation. It's not possible to protect individual privacy and provide accurate population counts. The Census Bureau is implementing a new strategy, "differential privacy," for the 2020 Census to protect individuals' privacy. This creates data that are not usable, said Berman, and 16 states have filed lawsuits against the Bureau so far.
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Join ISER’s Dr. Matthew Berman on Monday, May 17 from 12-1 pm for a discussion of the issues involved in balancing privacy and accuracy of Census Bureau data. Dr. Berman will provide a brief overview of the Census Bureau’s approach to protecting privacy, why they chose it, and how it could affect Alaska and other states. He will also describe litigation from states cannot resolve the problem in the long run, and potential pathways for permanent solutions nationally and locally.
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Join us for a webinar on March 25 from 12-1 pm, when Dr. Brett Watson will present findings from research studies that statistically quantify how much locals in Alaska communities benefit economically from commercial fishing.
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On Thursday, February 25 from 12-1 pm, join us for a discussion on what UAA researchers have found on how contact tracing has impacted COVID-19 transmission, strategies for reaching out to vulnerable Alaskans, and plans to hear community voices on the impacts of COVID-19 in the Arctic.
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On Thursday, January 28 join us for a discussion on what UAA researchers have found on how COVID-19 has impacted mask wearing in Anchorage, fishing decisions in Bristol Bay and how rural Alaskans describe their experience with the pandemic.
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Anchorage Climate Action Plan collaborators, including UAA and ISER faculty, are sponsoring a lunchtime talk Friday, August 9 in the ISER conference room, by Illinois Research Climatologist Ashish Sharma on how the most vulnerable in urban settings can be better protected from climate-related health challenges. As extreme weather becomes the norm, the number of heat-related deaths around the world continues to rise, causing the media to coin the phrase, “heat, the silent killer.”&
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David Riley, a Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton, UK, will talk about the protocol he’s developed for comprehensive gas hydrate development in Alaska at a lunchtime talk Thursday, May 30, in ISER's conference room. The protocol summarizes data from a range of sources and the positions of different stakeholder groups into one framework, allowing them to be more easily understood by any decision maker.
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Visiting Fulbright Scholar and Doctor of Law, Elena Gladun, will give an overview of recent educational and research projects in Siberia and Yamal regions of the Russian Arctic, the most effective supports for sustainable development, and Indigenous rights and interests at a lunchtime talk on Friday, May 17, in ISER’s conference room at noon.
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Chris Southcott, who has been involved in community-based research in the circumpolar north for more than 30 years, will share final results from his Resources and Sustainable Development (ReSDA) project, which looked at developing ways to ensure that a larger share of resource development benefits stay in the region, and what it means for communities in Northern Canada, Alaska and other Arctic regions at a lunchtime talk at ISER on Thursday, May 16 at noon.