Leadership – Alaska Voices

The work of being ourselves: Following the tides from Yakutat to Kasaan

February 9, 2026

Three Native Southeast Alaskan people, two men and a woman, smile in front of a photoshopped background of a rocky moutain.

“Could you even imagine if you could try to outgive me? ʼI’m going to give better than you.ʼ What kind of world would we live in?” -George Nix

Lightning, wildfires, and Martian ice

May 3, 2021

Kathy and Matt smile at the camera in front of a photoshopped background of a river shrub-covered mountains.

“We asked them if they could tailor their models from the Martian landscape to Earth permafrost landscapes and from there we developed some early calculations of impacts of climate change on permafrost.” – Cathy Wilson

Land stewardship in a changing world

April 5, 2021

“Venetie at one time in the 40s and 50s was a major gardening center and they would trade potatoes and carrots, things like that, they would go down and trade for salmon on the Yukon and supply vegetables and such for the steam boats.” – Lance Whitwell

Partnerships

September 21, 2020

“As a leader you’re not there to tell people what to do. You’re there to support them succeeding at what they already can do best or helping them learn to do something better.”

Leveling the ivory tower

September 10, 2020

“As a mentor it’s important for me to advocate for my students, especially as undergraduates you really feel like you’re at the bottom and you have no power.”

Reflecting after a Commencement handshake

June 25, 2020

Dan and Diane, the chancellor and a student, smile at the camera in front of a photoshopped background of the University of Alaska campus.

“We currently are the world leader in Arctic research. No other university, and really no other federal government around the world, does more research on the Arctic than University of Alaska Fairbanks.”

Keeping an eye on the land

May 18, 2020

“Done a little bit of everything you can imagine, from recycling pop cans to fuel spill response and contaminated site cleanups and brownfields, the whole gamut of things we can run in to in the villages.”