Unalaska, AK – Later this month, Unalaska will host the third annual Western Alaskan Interdisciplinary Science Conference. More than forty researchers, community members, and students from around western Alaska will come together to present papers and hold discussions on a myriad of science topics from March 24-27.

"So there'll be sessions on alternative energy, sessions on ecology and wild life, fisheries, recycling in agriculture. There will be a Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and an anthropology piece. So there's really some fascinating piece for people of Western Alaska communities to come and see," said conference coordinator Reid Brewer from the Marine Advisory program.

Specific lecture topics include successful residential wind projects in Dillingham, bird life on Kasatochi Volcano, and research in the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge. Community members are invited to attend the lectures all day on March 25 and 26 and participate in the conference workshops on the 27th. The conference will also include evening lectures, tours of the museum, and other opportunities to meet and learn from the visitors. Unalaska residents can attend all of the events for free. Most of them will take place in the Makushin Room at the Grand Aleutian. A specific schedule will be released soon. Brewer is still accepting paper abstracts, from published scientists and active community members alike, until March 15.

Running concurrently with the science conference will be a photo exhibit at the Museum of the Aleutians featuring underwater photos taken by Brewer and his colleagues during a research trip in the Aleutians.

"My hope with this project was to celebrate and share some of the images that we were able to capture on that trip," he said.
The exhibit, called Marine Life in the Aleutians, will open on March 19.

The first WASIC was held in Dillingham at the UAF- Bristol Bay campus in 2008. You can register for the conference and find out more details online here.