Good afternoon from Eagle River. We wanted to provide the following monthly update from our center of Arctic Science & Technology research for your information. Here goes!
ADAC’s March 2021 planned, supported, and/or hosted convening events.
ADAC’s March Madness: 3 workshops in 3 weeks. The month of March has flown by far too quickly. A complicating factor for us is our self-imposed/subscribed “March Madness” in planning and conducting 3 major workshops in 3 weeks (Alaskan Command’s Arctic Senior Leader Summit 2021, ADAC’s Arctic Challenges, Innovations, and Commerce Expo (Arctic CICE), and Advancing Collaboration in Canada-U.S. Arctic Regional Security (ACCUSARS) II workshop. It was quite an eventful time and frankly, individually and collectively, these three workshops provided a complex and diverse set of reflections and understandings, and each provided participants a chance to connect with quite a remarkable group of leaders from Alaskan Native & Arctic Indigenous communities, defense & security, and economic & environmental research. The combined totals of registered participants from our 3 workshops were well over 500 people. We are truly thankful and appreciative of all of our partners and collaborators for these events, and would like to single out the following entities for their exceptional efforts in supporting one or more of these trio of important Arctic events:
- United States Northern Command
- Alaskan Command
- U.S. Army Alaska
- USCG Pacific Area and USCG District 17
- HQ U.S. Coast Guard Senior Arctic Policy Advisor and Office of Emerging Policy (Evergreen)
- Canadian Joint Operations Command and Joint Task Force North
- The Alaska Congressional Delegation
- Alaska Federation of Natives
- Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation
- U.S. Arctic Research Commission
- University of Alaska Business Enterprise Institute (and BEI Center of Economic Development)
- Woodrow Wilson Center Polar Institute
- North American & Arctic Defense and Security Network at Trent University
- Univ of Idaho Center of Resilient Communities
- Univ of Alaska Fairbanks Center of Arctic Security and Resilience
- Alaska Ocean Cluster
- Qilak LNG LLC
We are underway in Chatham House savvy write ups from ASLS21 and ACCUSARS II and will shortly post the Arctic CICE recording to our website (which was not a Chatham House minded event).
New awarded ADAC Research. Following DHS S&T OUP approval last week, yesterday, ADAC received the notice of award for our new project titled Arctic Facilities and Infrastructure Environmental Change Risk Index. This research was developed and coordinated to be in direct response to a USCG District 17 request to characterize conditions and enable USCG Decision support/risk management on Arctic coastal infrastructure and facilities. ADAC intends this project will provide decision support products oriented to the U.S. Arctic coastal regions of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The planned project team will coordinate with experts in the soil and permafrost composition of Arctic Coastal regions and identify associated permafrost degradation and erosion modelers and seeks to create (and publish) three knowledge products: a comprehensive Arctic facilities and infrastructure environmental change knowledge product, operationally relevant Arctic facilities and infrastructure environmental change risk index, and Arctic inspector and responder structural environmental impacts training guide. This new research is co-led by Dr Craig Tweedie, University of Texas El Paso and Dr. Matt Calhoun, UAA College of Engineering with important research contributions by UAF Institute of Northern Engineering, Pacific NW National Labs, Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation and UAA BEI Applied Environmental Research Center. We will shortly have a new web page established for this brand-new research.
Coming soon: website page for Alaskan and Arctic Maritime Communications and Connectivity Analysis. While the research is well underway led by Sandia National Labs Dr. Mark Ivey and ADAC’s Dr. Doug Causey and Mr. Jason “Olaf” Roe, USCG retired, the research is now conducting a number of regionally focused sessions gaining insights to mariner communications and connectivity challenges across 5 distinct sectors of the Arctic maritime region. We are thankful for the magnificent research team which includes ASRC Federal Mission Solutions, Sandia National Labs, Alaska Marine Exchange, Alaska Marine Prevention and Response Network, Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation, and UAF’s Alaska Satellite Facility.
Please check out all the current and legacy ADAC project pages at: https://arcticdomainawarenesscenter.org/Projects
Update on ADAC’s 2021 Arctic Summer Intern Project: Regrettably, due to remaining concerns for student and community safety, ADAC is reluctantly once again proceeding to conduct our Summer Intern Project via virtual means. In order to align this with the Center’s Program Year 8, the program will commence in early July and will be contained in a single “program year” that will plan for the field experience in the Spring (May timeframe) 2022 at the Barrow Arctic Research Center.
Support to other conferences/events. ADAC was honored to support the University of Houston’s “Port of the Future” conference as well as United States Strategic Command’s Academic Alliance conference this month and looks forward to supporting re-occurrences of those events in the coming years.
Current (near term) line-up for ADAC related workshops. Please see details for ADAC hosted events at: https://arcticdomainawarenesscenter.org/Events
- Arctic Maritime Horizons. In partnership with HQ USCG Director of Maritime Transportation Systems and Senior Arctic Policy Advisor, are creating a tabletop exercise planned as an in-event for 4-6 May 2021 in Anchorage Alaska focused organized to address policy, plans and initiatives to support HQ USCG and the Coast Guard Enterprise in addressing the 2019 USCG Arctic Strategic Outlook (ArcSO) task to “Advance and Modernize the Arctic Marine Transportation System.” Due to COVID19, ADAC has been forced to reschedule this exercise 5 times, and now is committed to making this a “Hybrid” event, that will host those who are able to travel to Anchorage, while also providing a virtual option for those who are not able to participate in-person. We will shortly post the updated agenda for all concerned and open registration, noting there will be both in person and virtual participation options.
- DHS S&T (Virtual) Summit 2021. ADAC is once again honored to support the community of Centers of Excellence in the return of DHS S&T Summits. This year’s event is planned for education, tech showcases and plenary events from 17 – 21 May 2021, that has scheduled the principal plenary activities from 19-20 May. We and our fellow DHS S&T OUP CoE hope you will join us by registering at: https://cina.gmu.edu/conference/coe-summit-2021/agenda/
- ADAC Annual (Virtual) Program Year 7 Meeting 2021. ADAC is honored to conduct our latest Annual meeting as a virtual event on 26-27 May 2021 as two 2/3rd day events. We have a number of planned and confirmed guest speakers and will showcase our Center’s research activities in this important update of our maturing and transitioning research. Registration is open and stay tuned for an array of research update materials that will be posted at the planned “event hub” in advance of the meeting.
- Next Wilson-ADAC Arctic Security Dialogues: 21 Apr 2021, standby time confirmation. Addressing the new dynamics of the trans-Atlantic Arctic maritime (draft title). This U.S. Coast Guard focused Arctic Security Dialogue, jointly hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center Polar Institute and ADAC will be the third of a series of the security dialogues and provides a great opportunity to hear from a multidiscipline community of Arctic leaders on the changing conditions and updated priorities in policy and measures to address U.S., Allied and partner security in the Arctic region. This event was slipped to a new date, simply due to the saturation of too many activities in a short space and not enough time to dedicate to the convening planning needs. Please stay tuned for more!
On behalf of the team and researcher network of ADAC, thanks for your interests and support of science, technology, education and more…in support of the Arctic operator.