Research Associates

Dr. Mark Altaweel

  1. University College London

    Current research interests:
    Understanding social-environmental change in modern and ancient societies in a variety of regions throughout the world including in the Arctic, Near East, Southeast Asia, North America, and Central Asia. In the first seven years after finishing his PhD, Mark has led a number of grants as a PI or Co-PI with collaborators in Economics, Anthropology, Archaeology, Sociology, Environmental Studies, Geography, Computer Science, and other fields. In addition to academic publications, Mark is interested in developing and applying open source tools to research problems in complexity science. While his current appointment is at University College London, he has held previous appointments at the University of Chicago, University of Alaska, and Argonne National Laboratory. He is currently on the editorial board of two journals.

Dr. Luis A. N. Amaral


    Northwest University
  1. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

    Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
    2145 Sheridan Rd., Room E136
    Evanston, IL 60208
    1-847-491-7850

    Current research interests:
    Group goal is to develop models that provide insight into the emergence, evolution, and stability of complex systems. To this end, we develop and validate models that can be studied by means of computational experiments. Our approach focus on the identification of the mechanisms determining the dynamics of a given system. We then translate these mechanisms into a parsimonious set of rules that can be implemented and investigated by computational means.
    It is our philosophy to focus on the development of simple models that provide an appropriate coarse-grained description of the system. In particular, we believe that even though computer resources have been growing at an exponential rule, one will gain more insight into a phenomena by avoiding the brute force implementation of first principles.

Dr. Michael C. Barton


    ASU Fulton Center
  1. 300 E. University Drive
    Tempe, AZ 85281
    1-480-965-3391

    Current research interests:
    My research interests center around long-term human ecology and landscape dynamcis with ongoing projects in the Mediterranean (late Pleistocene through mid-Holocene) and American Southwest (Holocene-Archaic).  I have done fieldwork in Spain, Bosnia, and various locales in North America and has expertise in hunter/gatherer and early farming societies, geoarchaeology, lithic technology, and evolutionary theory, with an emphasis on human/environmental interaction, landscape dynamics, and techno-economic change. I am actively involved in applying quantitative methods in archaeological research, emphasizing spatial technologies (including GIS and remote sensing), exploratory data analysis, and morphological analysis. I am a member of the GRASS GIS international development team.

Dr. Patrick Christie


    University of Washington
  1. School of Marine Affairs
    3707 Brooklyn Ave. NE
    Seattle, WA 98105-6715

    Current research interests:
    Social feasibility of ecosystem based management and marine protected areas: Integrated Coastal Management; Marine Protected Area Impacts on Coral Reef Fisheries and Fishing Communities; Participatory Research;Qualitative Social Research Methods.

    Patrick’s current research projects consider tribal perspectives on marine protected areas in Puget Sound and the feasibility of ecosystem based fisheries management models in tropical contexts. He recently oversaw a large, inter-disciplinary three-year research project in the Philippines and Indonesia that studied why coastal environmental management processes break down over time. Findings were published and serve as the basis for educational materials. Patrick conducted his graduate research on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua where he studied the potential of participatory research, which engaged coastal community members as researchers, to improve environmental management. Prior to his academic work, Patrick was involved in the implementation of a community-based marine protected area in the Philippines as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He teaches about marine protected areas, coastal management, and environmental management in the tropics. He is an Associate Editor for the journal Coastal Management and board member of The Coastal Society.

Dr. Larry Hinzman


    University of Alaska - Fairbanks
  1. Water and Environmental Research Center WERC
    306 Tanana Loop
    Fairbanks, AK 99755
    1-907-474-7331

    Current research interests:
    Hydrology, soil science, premafrost and remote sensing.

Dr. Richard Lammers


    University of New Hampshire
  1. Water Systems Analysis Group
    Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at UNH
    Morse Hall, Room 211
    8 College Road
    Durham, NH 03824 (USA)

    Current research interests:

    The focus of Richard's research is on Pan-Arctic and global-scale hydrometeorological modeling and analysis.

    Research interests include:

    Understanding the high latitude hydrological cycle; Convergence of human and biogeophysical datasets, modeling, and analysis; Global-scale hydrometeorology; Uncertainty of estimates based on future scenarios; Physically-based hydrological models; Spatial datasets and geoprocessing; Land surface partitioning; River networks; and Techniques of Internet-based data serving and analysis

Dr. Jonathan Ozik

    University of Chicago, Computation Institute

  1. Current research interests:
    A Computational Social Scientist in the Center for Complex Adaptive Agent Systems Simulation within the Decision and Information Sciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory, Jonathan is also a Fellow in the Computation Institute at The University of Chicago. Dr. Ozik’s research focus is in the broad and emerging field of social computation. His research involves the modeling of predominantly social complex systems. The goal is to better understand the mechanisms at play in the multiple spatio-temporal levels often required to encapsulate the behaviors of complex systems and the often counterintuitive emergent micro and macro patterns that such systems can exhibit.

Dr. Daniel White

    University of Alaska Fairbanks
  1. Water and Environmental Research Center WERC
    306 Tanana Loop
    Fairbanks AK 99755
    1-907-474-6222

    Current research interests:
    Water/wastewater process engineering, impacts of climate change on water resources, wWater quality protection, and corrosion assessment/mitigation.

Dr. Paula Williams


    University of Alaska, Anchorage
  1. Director, Office of Sustainability
    3890 University Lake Drive, ULB 110B
    Anchorage, AK 99508
    1-907-786-1515

    Current research interests:
    The interactions between the biophysical environment and human social systems, specifically, the influences on human perception of environmental change, and on willingness to adapt.  I also seek ways to motivate people to make changes that increase their capacity to adapt.

Additional Research Associates

Richard Lammers (UNH)

Bill Schnabel (UAF WERC)

Chris Arp (UAF WERC)

Maryann Smith (AIA)

Victoria Goffman (AIA)

Terry Hunt (UH)

Peter Schweitzer (UAF)