What did you accomplish with your host organization? What was the impact of your work?

This summer I worked with the of Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) on a variety of activities, but as my main project I organized and shared a database of sources which SEARCH participants will use as they research and write publications. While I assisted SEARCH’s directors and executive committee with meetings and other activities, this task was for the most part mine to lead. I collected articles, reports, essays, books, and other sources and entered them into the database to make them easily available to everyone involved with SEARCH. I also created an instructional video for all team members showing how to use the database, and presented my work to the executive committee. I hope that as they continue researching, writing, and publishing their products, SEARCH participants will benefit greatly from the convenience of the newly organized database.

Mid-way through my summer fellowship with the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH), I settled in to a routine of working and meeting with my supervisors to exchange updates with them on our work. Since I worked mostly alone on my project, and remotely (with the exception of a two-day in-person meeting in Anchorage), my supervisors and I decided to meet often to prevent me from becoming disconnected from them. Fortunately, SEARCH conducts meetings mostly online because its participants live at great distances from one another, so it felt easy for me to keep closely in touch with them throughout the entire summer.

Hello everybody! This summer I am working as a research assistant with the directors of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). SEARCH is a research project in which teams of people with diverse areas of expertise work together to produce knowledge about environmental change in the Arctic and what it means for people. In this process called “co-production,” SEARCH contributors combine Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, scientific knowledge, and knowledge of economic and political decision-making to produce publicly available information. These reports, articles, podcast episodes, and other products are made for local communities and the concerned public as a source of information on environmental Arctic change, and for policy makers to better inform decisions about the Arctic. It is an exciting and hugely beneficial project—I feel very fortunate to be a part of it and to learn from each of these incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful contributors.