University of Alaska Fairbanks

When you follow scientists in the Alaska wilderness, you'll almost certainly get alder-snagged.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Graduate School has selected seven Ph.D. students for the 2025 Mellon Foundation Troth Yeddha' Collective Fellowship. These fellows are established students whose work centers Indigenous knowledge in the arts and humanities, builds transdisciplinary connections, and responds to community needs through university-based research.

Instruments typically used to detect the ground motion of earthquakes can also be used to identify the type of aircraft flying far overhead, research by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists shows.

The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska's Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost to thaw and by increasing the amount of liquid water present during winter. Those are the key findings of the first comprehensive, on-the-ground assessment of the northward migration of beavers.

Mount Edgecumbe volcano in Southeast Alaska sits in a place where a volcano shouldn't really be sitting. Research underway with new federal funding aims to solve that mystery.

As Alaska's rivers begin serving as winter roads and trails, a new study from the University of Alaska Fairbanks helps explain why certain stretches of water never seem to freeze.

Eight members of the University of Alaska Fairbanks volleyball team have been named to the 2025 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Academic All-Conference Team.

University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks guard Mike Miller has been named to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball Preseason All-Conference team.

Following a recent spike in Bering Sea killer whale entanglements, a simple addition to fishing nets has delivered positive early results for keeping the big marine mammals out of deep-water flatfish trawls. The net modification was developed through a collaboration between University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Hannah Myers and the Alaska Seafood Cooperative, which coordinates a fleet that targets groundfish such as flounder and sole.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Education has selected Elianna "Bair" Pinneta as the recipient of the 2025 Steve and Cynthia Holmberg Education Endowed Scholarship. The award provides $5,000 to support tuition and other educational expenses and will aid Pinneta in pursuing her degree in elementary education.

Thirteen of the 112 cross country runners named to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Academic All-Conference Team, presented by Barnes & Noble College, are from University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks cross country teams.

Two University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate students are among the 1,500 recipients of the 2025-2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Willa Johnson and Xochitl Munoz will each receive three years of financial support, including a $37,000 annual stipend and funds to cover tuition and fees, in addition to professional development opportunities.

An ambitious new research project is aiming to better understand the lives of king salmon by focusing on their difficult journey from freshwater habitat to the ocean. The project, a collaboration between the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is using hundreds of acoustic tags and an array of underwater hydrophones to track young salmon as they navigate the Kenai River to Cook Inlet.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Indigenous Studies has selected the inaugural cohort of the Leaders in Indigenous Food and Energy Scholars Program. The program is designed to support and cultivate emerging and current leaders in Alaska's Indigenous food and energy systems.

The Alaska Nanooks women's cross country program had two student-athletes named to the 2024-25 Academic All-America Women's Track & Field/Cross Country Team, selected by College Sports Communicators (CSC). Rosie Fordham and Kendall Kramer both earned Academic All-America honors after standout seasons on the course and in the classroom. Fordham, now a two-time honoree, earned Second Team Academic All-America recognition, while Kramer was named a First Team Academic All-American - the first such honor in program history.

The Alaska Nanooks volleyball team has once again been recognized for excellence in the classroom, earning the 2025 AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2024-25 academic year. The Nanooks are one of 1,458 teams honored by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, marking a record-breaking total of collegiate and high school programs to receive the distinction. The award celebrates teams that maintain a year-long GPA of 3.3 or higher on a 4.0 scale (or 4.1 on a 5.0 scale). This is the seventh consecutive year-and the 11th time in program history-that Alaska has earned the AVCA Team Academic Award. The Nanooks first received the honor in 2008.

FAIRBANKS - The Alaska Nanooks rifle team continues to uphold its tradition of excellence-this time in the classroom. All nine student-athletes on the 2024-25 roster have been named to the Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association (CRCA) Scholastic All-American Team, announced following the completion of the academic year.

Samples of extremely small crystal clots, each polished to the thickness of a human hair or thinner, have revealed information about the process triggering the major 2006 eruption of Alaska's Augustine Volcano. Graduate student researcher Valerie Wasser at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute determined that the addition of hot new magma into Augustine's reservoir of cooler, older magma increased the pressure enough to trigger the 2006 eruption. Wasser's analysis of Augustine crystal clots was published May 29 in Geology, the journal of The Geological Society of America.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology's Toolik Field Station has named five recipients of its 2025 Tundra Award for student and early career research.

UAF students John Davis, Kaylana Nations and Matthew Lesh were all recently awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, which supports students studying abroad.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks honored the Class of 2025 during its 103rd commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 3, at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks. The university's first commencement took place in 1923, when the sole graduate, John Sexton Shanly, received a bachelor's degree in agriculture. This year, UAF conferred approximately 1,184 degrees on 1,110 students. Some students received more than one degree. The commencement ceremony included graduates from summer and fall 2024 and spring 2025.

The UAF Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity has named the recipients of the URSA 2025 Innovative Technology and Education Awards.

UAF civil engineering students placed fourth at the 2025 national Student Steel Bridge Competition, earning top honors in construction speed and structural efficiency with an innovative, student-led design.

FAIRBANKS - Gustavs Davis Grigals and Markuss Komuls were selected to Team Latvia for the start of the 2025 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Herning, Denmark.

Students from the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Business and Security Management returned from New York City with national honors after placing second in the Undergraduate Growth Portfolio category at the Quinnipiac University Global Asset Management Education Forum.

Sam Simon, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has been selected as a co-recipient of the 2025 Angus Gavin Memorial Migratory Bird Research Grant. Simon is pursing a master's degree in wildlife biology and conservation.

Schools and colleges at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have named their outstanding students for the 2024-2025 academic years. Students are selected for a variety of accomplishments, including exceptional academic achievement, leadership, contributions to their field or community.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks honored its 2025 outstanding undergraduate degree recipients and commencement speaker at a ceremony on Friday, May 2.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks team placed second overall in the Pacific Northwest regional Student Steel Bridge Competition earlier this month in Portland. The team also secured first place in construction speed and first in structural efficiency.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks engineering student who is researching highly efficient insulation placed among the top nine at a recent regional thesis competition. Micah VanderHart, who won first place in UAF's Three Minute Thesis competition in February, went on to a regional competition in Denver, Colorado, in March. 3MT participants present their theses in three minutes with only one PowerPoint slide.