For
each of the next three summers, Ithaca College students will join Allen-Gil,
a team of researchers from Oregon State University, and local Inupiat
residents for two to four weeks on the Arctic tundra. The team will establish
field camps at a series of remote lakes in Alaska — some of which are
more often frequented by grizzly bears than by humans. The group’s task
will be to collect sediment, water, fish, and invertebrate samples, check
them for contaminants, and analyze the food web structure. The research
team will also explore the parallels and dissimilarities between Western
approaches to science and those at the heart of Inupiat culture.
Allen-Gil has been interested in ecological issues all her life; the Arctic tundra, like many other environments, is practically home turf. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and environmental studies from St. Lawrence University, a master’s degree in environmental management from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in toxicology from Oregon State University. She studied wildlife consumption in Africa and Asia as a Watson fellow in 1984–85 and spent time examining Arctic issues in Russia as a National Academy of Sciences "young investigator." She has also worked for the Appalachian Mountain Club, Student Conservation Association, and School for Field Studies and was a postdoctoral fellow at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, California. She started teaching at Ithaca in 1998.
Allen-Gil and her co-investigator at Oregon State University, Jesse Ford, have conducted research on Arctic pollution in Alaska and Siberia since 1991. Their research and the work of other scientists have demonstrated that the level of exposure to certain pollutants in Arctic subsistence populations is among the highest of any community in the world.
The new research initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, will provide Ithaca College and Oregon State University with more than $600,000 to examine selected factors potentially influencing organochlorine and selected trace element concentrations in subsistence fisheries of Arctic Alaskan freshwater habitats.
