Teachers
Marlene McDermott has been teaching 3rd grade at Joy Elementary since 2005.
Originally from the East coast, she has been enjoying life in Alaska
for the past 12 years. Her background includes work in museum
education, environmental education, and the arts. Marlene is especially
interested in providing students with meaningful science experiences
that inspire them to ask questions about their world. She enjoys
kayaking, gardening, skiing and spending time outdoors.
Tanya Wimer was born and raised in South Central Alaska. She moved to Fairbanks nine years ago after teaching in a small Yupik village in western Alaska. For the last four years she has worked with Chugach School District in the Fairbanks Extension Office. Tanya has been involved in a number of science grant programs including
AIM,
GLOBE, STEP and AMIDST. She has a passion for science in the classroom and for making learning real for students through inquiry based projects and thematic units.
Native elder / Community member
Robert Charlie is the founder of the Cultural Heritage and Education Institute (
CHEI) located in Minto, 30 miles down the Tanana river from Nenana, Alaska. His mission is to educate people about the Athabascan "ways of knowing". Through his programs he has instilled pride in community children and given them tools to overcome the lure of substance abuse. Robert Charlie is also a composer who writes, sings, and plays his guitar.
Sam Demintoff is a long time Alaskan resident, who like many others, has witnessed the landscape of interior Alaska change dramatically in the recent past. Sam has supported several groups of scientists in their field mapping projects to study permafrost, forest fires, and geomorphology. For the AMIDST project Sam shared his observations and his stories with the children. He explained that the Earth we live on is dynamic, and Alaskan children can witness this more than anyone else.
Subject experts
Sharon Alden is the
Fire Weather Program Manager at the
Alaska Interagency Coordination Center for the National Park Service - US Department of the Interior. She brings expertise on the topic of meteorological controls of forest fire occurrences. She likes to impart fire education in Alaska, especially on the
natural role of fire, fire management, prevention and Firewise. For the AMIDST project Sharon was involved with the teachers training workshop and served on the forest fire panel.
Ronnie Daanen is a Post Doctoral fellow with the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks. His areas of research specialization include, but are not limited to, freezing soils, snow and frozen ground modeling, and cold climate hydrology. For the AMIDST project Ronnie shared his knowledge about discontiuous permafrost in Interior Alaska with teachers, community members and with students in the field.
Kevin Engle is a Research Programmer and Ground Station Engineer at the Geographic Information Network of Alaska (
GINA) facility. As one of his many tasks, Kevin processes images from the MODIS satellite images in near-real time to map fires in interior Alaska and support the local fire monitoring and fire fighting teams. For the AMIDST project Kevin served on the 'fire panel' and provided forest fire related hand-out materials for students and teachers.
Rudi Gens is a Remote Sensing Scientist at the Alaska Satellite Facility at UAF. His research specialization is in the processing and applications of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Interferometric SAR data. For the AMIDST project he shared his knowledge about remote sensing for Earth systems studies, and was available to take questions from teachers and students on the use of satellite images for a variety of cryospheric applications.
Peter Hickman is a Principal Consultant and an ESRI Authorized Instructor for
GeoApps, Inc. His technical expertise lies in the training and use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology. He also works for the GINA facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For his graduate studies Pete researched the LIDAR applications in Boreal Forests. Pete was avaialbe for the AMIDST projects to share his knowledge and take questions from AMIDST participants.
Clinton Northway is a forestry technician in the Fairbanks area. For the AMIDST project he shared his first hand experience ia addressing calls reporting fire incidences in interior Alaska and discussed waht keeps him busy during the summer. He presented fire incidence statistics for the last 5 years along with spectacular field photograph that kept the participants spell bound. Clinton discussed human and natural casues of fire. He also served on the AMIDST 'fire panel'.
Santosh Panda is a Ph.D. student at the Geophysical Institute, UAF. His research work deals with using remote sensing images to map the surface landcover, which in turn is reflective of near-surface permafrost conditions. Santosh supports the mapping efforts of Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (DGGS), for the proposed gas pipeline corridor in Alaska. He worked with both teachers and students, engaging and enthusing them in permafrost research.
Technology support
Amy Chausse is a journalism student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She is passionate about journalism and never misses an opportunity to capture every element of a story that she works on. Amy has taken the TV news production class where students write and produce the 'UAF weekly' that is aired on KSUA-TV. For the AMIDST project Amy volunteered to do a news item that was aired on Channel 13. Amy loves working with children and volunteers for community service whenever possible.
Doug Lange is a music teacher at the Joy Elementary School. Besides his full time job at the school, Doug is active with music groups, community events, and performances. He serves as a board member for the Fairbanks summer art festival and an advisor to the board for the Fairbanks community band. For the AMIDST project Doug worked one-on-one with each student team, accounted for their musical likes and dislikes, and helped them include music to their digital stories.
Sudiptar Sarkar is a graduate student with the remote sensing group at the Geophysical Institute, UAF. His research is on mapping surface expressions of onshore gas hydrates in Prudhoe Bay region, Alaska. Sudipta is a techno-savy student who is proficient in learning new software packages and assisting others get over their technological hurdles. For the AMIDST project he ensured that the cumputer network, software packages, headsets, and cameras all worked.
Bill Witte is the computer systems manager for the Department of Geology and Geophysics at UAF. A geologist by education, Bill is deeply involved with field mapping projects, teaching computer methods to undergraduate and graduate students, and using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technology for geoscience applications. Bill Witte maintains the GPS units and mobile GIS lab used for the AMIDST project.
