2026 Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Annual Community Meeting
Sessions accepting presentation abstracts
Click below for session details.
Alaska Native Aging Well: A community approach
Session Convener: Steffi Kim (University of Alaska Anchorage)
Description: This session will introduce listeners to the Alaska Native Aging Well Model and its Implications for Elder Well-being. The presenter will share the Aging Well domains, as well as its promises for future use in community resource development as well as individual health. The presentation will include the introduction of the UAA AN CARE Lab to promote a resource website for Alaska Native Elders, brain health, dementia, and caregiving.
Arctic Community Resource Coalition
Session Convener: Cathleen Torres Parisian (Polar Geospatial Center, University of Minnesota)
Description: The Arctic science support and resource landscape has changed nearly as much as the environment itself in recent years due to major changes in the federal funding and community support ecosystem. This interactive session will feature brief live demonstrations from organizations and resource providers showcasing a wide range of pathways for engaging in Arctic science and community activities. Following demonstrations, participants will work in breakout groups through realistic Arctic research scenarios and discussions to collaboratively identify resources, organizations, and connections that could help address specific challenges and needs. Designed for students, early career, and established community members alike, the session aims to strengthen awareness, accessibility, and connections across the Arctic science community.
Big map data: Enabling science and solutions
Session Convener: Anna Liljedahl (Woodwell Climate Research Center)
Description: This session aims to bring together people interested in the creation and use of big map data. Together, we will explore "what's next" to help further the creation and use of big map data. The session will include a few highlight presentations (15-min) followed by 10-min discussion/question and will conclude with a 30-min discussion how the Arctic Data Center can expand its services around big geospatial data.
Braiding Village Voices—NNA Outcomes, Barriers, and Policy Priorities in the Arctic
Session Convener: Julie Brigham-Grette (University of Massachusetts - Amherst)
Description: This session will showcase concrete outcomes, lessons learned, and best practices from NNA projects and community partnerships; Highlight critical challenges, barriers, and gaps identified by villages and research teams; synthesize evidence-based policy recommendations for state and federal stakeholders; Amplify village perspectives on urgent, timely issues affecting Arctic sustainability and resilience; Create pathways for translating community knowledge into actionable policy change.
Community emPOWERment
Session Convener: Michelle Wilber (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Description: Energy availability is a fundamental driver of well being. How is research on community energy and power systems (including electric vehicles, heating, and other topics) being driven by and responding to community priorities? What does co-production of energy knowledge look like?
Cumulative impacts of development, and climate events in the Arctic
Session Convener: Karl Mertens (Boise State University)
Description: Across the arctic, industrial development and climate events can have cumulative effects across human, animal, and ecological systems. Winter warming spells can have mixed effects for rangifer: from hastening thaw and extending access to forage to ice locking pasture and contributing to mortality (caribou) or high cost supplemental feeding (reindeer). Industrial development changes animal habitat use and has effects beyond the direct footprint, but may increase regional sovereignty. In this session we invite perspectives, observations and findings from the Eurasian and North American Arctic on cumulative impacts, using local knowledge, monitoring observations, and modeling results.
Decolonial and Indigenous Approaches to Arctic Research
Session Convener: Stanislav Saas Ksenofontov & Andrey Petrov (ARCTICenter, University of Northern Iowa)
Description: Decolonization of research in academia has become an agenda for many scholars globally and one of the most discussed topics especially among the Indigenous scholars actively advocating for decolonized research. Historically, researchers from dominant societies extracted knowledge from Indigenous communities, often without appropriate consideration of local perspectives, people’s agency, and their consent. Western science thus has often been a tool to colonize Indigenous Peoples and their homelands around the world, including the Arctic.
The process of decolonization in academia enables Indigenous communities to center their own knowledge systems and perspectives in research, allowing Indigenous scholars to propose their research methodologies and epistemologies. "Humane" social science research practices can be broadly described as care-centered approaches that equally prioritize the well-being, reciprocity, and safety of both researchers and research participants, while respecting Indigenous knowledge systems and meaningfully addressing the needs and priorities of the communities involved. This Indigenous-led session, focusing on Indigenous and decolonial approaches to Arctic research, invites scholars to share their research approaches and methodologies, which assist decolonization processes, actively challenge dominant perspectives in research, prioritize the inclusion of marginalized voices and Indigenous knowledge systems, and avoid perpetuating colonial power dynamics. Presentations from Indigenous scholars and knowledge holders are especially welcome.
Resilience in Arctic Infrastructure-Environment Interactions
Session Convener: Howard Epstein (University of Virginia)
Description: Accelerated warming, thawing permafrost, eroding coasts, and increasing exposure to natural hazards are causing destabilization of infrastructure in Arctic communities. Environmental changes are occurring at a rapid rate, and preparedness has become an urgent priority across the Arctic for sustaining safe and thriving communities. Intersecting challenges underscore the need for multi-disciplinary and integrated strategies that support resilience in Arctic infrastructure-environment interactions. This session will address new advances in understanding the bi-directional connections between infrastructure and the natural Arctic environment, and how Arctic science, Indigenous knowledge, and community engagement can produce better outcomes for Arctic communities in the face of a broad spectrum of threats.
Restoring epistemic justice through ArtSLInK (Arts, Science, Local and Indigenous Knowledge) co-creative practices
Session Convener: Vera Kuklina (University of Maryland)
Description: Indigenous and artistic ways of knowledge sharing have historically been underrepresented in research and funding. Indigenous knowledge systems for a long time have been unjustly marginalized by academic scholarship. At the same time, quite often, arts that play a crucial role in interpersonal, intergenerational, and intercultural knowledge transmission have been exclusively considered as a dissemination tool rather than part of the intellectual merit itself. Epistemic justice requires recognizing diversity of the ways the knowledge can be generated, processed, and shared that can lead to synergy of research convergence. Restoring epistemic justice is only possible through collective efforts of all actors involved, including decision makers, academia, Indigenous knowledge holders, artists and communities. This event draws on the experience of ArtSLInK (Arts, Science, Local and Indigenous Knowledge) initiative and invites everyone interested in bridging diverse ways of knowing. Participants are encouraged to utilize creative methods of knowledge sharing and co-creation to exchange experience and perspectives for justice-restoring research activities.
Toward More Humane Research Practices in the New Arctic
Session Convener: Marya Rozanova-Smith (The George Washington University), Andrey N. Petrov (ARCTICenter, University of Northern Iowa )
Description: This discussion session invites reflections on how research with Arctic communities can become more humane. "Humane" social science research practices can be broadly described as care-centered approaches that equally prioritize the well-being, reciprocity, and safety of both researchers and research participants, while respecting Indigenous knowledge systems and meaningfully addressing the needs and priorities of the communities involved. While significant advances have been made in the humanizing Arctic research over the past several decades, a considerable disconnect persists between declared goals and priorities of social science research based on partner-centered approaches, strong community engagement, transdisciplinarity and knowledge co-production, and conventional Western science methodologies and institutional practices. Participants will be encouraged to share personal experiences and identify hidden, silenced, or underexamined challenges that continue to shape Arctic research.
Humanizing, Indigenizing, and Decolonizing Research Practices in the 'New' Arctic
Session Convener: Stanislav Saas Ksenofontov & Andrey Petrov (ARCTICenter, University of Northern Iowa)
Description: Decolonization of research in academia has become an agenda for many scholars globally and one of the most discussed topics especially among the Indigenous scholars actively advocating for decolonized research. Historically, researchers from dominant societies extracted knowledge from Indigenous communities, often without appropriate consideration of local perspectives, people’s agency, and their consent. Western science thus has often been a tool to colonize Indigenous Peoples and their homelands around the world, including the Arctic.
The process of decolonization in academia enables Indigenous communities to center their own knowledge systems and perspectives in research, allowing Indigenous scholars to propose their research methodologies and epistemologies. In contrast, "humane" social science research practices can be broadly described as care-centered approaches that equally prioritize the well-being, reciprocity, and safety of both researchers and research participants, while respecting Indigenous knowledge systems and meaningfully addressing the needs and priorities of the communities involved.
This Indigenous-led session, focusing on Indigenous and decolonial approaches to Arctic research, invites scholars to share their research approaches and methodologies, which assist decolonization processes, actively challenge dominant perspectives in research, prioritize the inclusion of marginalized voices and Indigenous knowledge systems, and avoid perpetuating colonial power dynamics. Presentations from Indigenous scholars and knowledge holders are especially welcome.