Vera Kuklina
University of Maryland, MD·Social Science
As the Arctic warms, the ice, snow and permafrost that communities depend on are changing. So are the cultural ties people have to these landscapes.
- Fields
Social Science
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
Arctic
climate change adaptation
frozen commons
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Identify and inventory the ice, snow and permafrost 'frozen commons' recognized by Indigenous and local communities and regional stakeholders, and describe how each is governed within its cultural setting.
- Analyze how social, environmental, technological and infrastructure forces interact to shape frozen commons, using a social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) framework and integrated modeling in paired rural-urban communities in Russia and Alaska.
- Assess, with local and Indigenous communities, how climate change alters the natural parts of biocultural heritage and shifts views on traditional ecological knowledge, environmental ethics and human-animal relations in Arctic cities.
- Examine how arts and culture represent changing biocultural heritage, and whether that heritage serves as a resource for climate adaptation in Arctic urban communities.
More about the research
Scientists know a great deal about the physical side of this frozen world. That knowledge, however, is largely separate from how local and Indigenous communities understand, use and govern it. Both of the lab's projects bring together social science, natural science, the arts and Indigenous knowledge. They ask how Arctic communities adapt to environmental change.
Why it matters
Arctic communities face fast loss of the ice, snow and permafrost they rely on for travel, food and culture. Linking scientific measurements with local and Indigenous knowledge could help these communities and their governments identify sources of resilience. It could also show how to manage shared frozen landscapes and use cultural heritage to support climate adaptation in Arctic cities in Alaska and Russia.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Alexander Kholodov
University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure long-term active-layer thickness, ground temperature and thaw subsidence at standardized sites along three climatic and ecological transects in northern Alaska, and compare how site conditions control seasonal thaw.
Matthew Jull
University of Virginia, VA·Engineering
Assess how thawing permafrost changes the earthquake response of soils and foundations, combining monitoring of key Alaskan infrastructure with centrifuge physical modeling.
Andrew Kliskey
University of Idaho, ID·Earth & Environmental Science
Characterize and evaluate energy-water system configurations in Idaho's Snake River Basin, including storage, efficiency, conservation and governance, across a range of resilience strategies.
The school
University of Maryland: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 602 research doctorates a year.
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