On Topic
University of Alaska
Recent Episodes
This episode’s guest is Michael West, Alaska’s State Seismologist, a UAF Research Associate Professor, and Director of the Alaska Earthquake Center. Mike received his PhD at Columbia University in 2001, and has an undergraduate degree in physics from Colorado College. His professional service focuses on advocacy for earthquake and tsunami preparedness, with an emphasis on Alaska and the Arctic.
This episode’s guest is Paula Mathieu, English professor in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College, and Director of the First-Year Writing Program, and Founder of the Writing Fellows Program there. Paul is the author of the ground-breaking book “Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition”, a book that is especially important in these times of communication that happens in 140 characters or less, and communication that often incites immediate controversy. She’s worked to expand her ideas about what it takes to practice the kind of social justice that a university should foster. She’s on the editorial boards of College Composition and Communication, and the prominent book series, “Writing and Rhetoric."
We hear a lot about climate change and the massive swings in our weather patterns these days. This episode’s guest is John Walsh, the Chief Scientist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He’s focused his long and distinguished academic career on Arctic climate weather variability. John was a convening lead author for the third U.S. National Climate Assessment completed in 2014 and the author of many important articles, books and reports on climate change, weather and sea ice prediction. Before joining the University of Alaska, John spent thirty years on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana, where he taught courses on weather and climate.