Author Archives: Zac Provant

Apply Now: Student Research Awards

Call for Applications (deadline June 10, 2024)

Summer 2024

Climate Change and Environmental Justice Student Research Awards

Overview

Thanks to generous support from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Professor Mark Carey (Environmental Studies Program/Geography Department) is able to offer several $4,000 Summer Research Awards for either graduate students or undergraduate students to conduct independent research on environmental justice and climate change in the Pacific Northwest. Students at any level are eligible to apply provided they meet the following research and eligibility requirements.

Research Criteria

The research proposal must be sound, feasible, and relevant
The Summer 2024 research travel, supplies, and time are not already funded by another source
Proposed research is humanities oriented
Proposed Summer 2024 research focuses on climate change and environmental justice in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Alaska, British Columbia), with a more precise focus on either (a) Indigenous communities and/or (b) the cryosphere (snow, ice, glaciers, permafrost)

Eligibility Criteria

Projects may come from any discipline but must have a substantive humanities component
Applicants can be any student, from a first-year undergraduate to an advanced PhD student, but the applicant must be returning to the UO as an enrolled student for Fall 2024
Applicants must obtain a commitment from a faculty member to supervise their summer research project (contact Professor Carey if you have a project but not a faculty mentor)
Applicants cannot be “double paid” to conduct this research (e.g., if your travel is already funded, then you cannot get more money to fund that travel; or, if your time is already funded through a summer stipend, scholarship, or GE, then you cannot get double salary)
Applicants must secure research approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) if proposed research involves work with human subjects

Award Expectations

Commit substantial time to conducting this proposed research during Summer 2024
Maintain regular interactions with the faculty mentor during Summer 2024
Complete a progress report by July 20 to receive the first half of the award pay around August 1
Complete a research report on the research conducted over the summer by September 15, 2024 (details of the report format will be distributed to awardees)
Graduate student awardees must share the results of the Summer 2024 research conducted in some public-facing venue, such as a departmental colloquium, UO Graduate Research Forum, or national conference
Undergraduate awardees must share the results of the research project at the May 2025 UO Undergraduate Symposium
Acknowledge the Andrew Mellon Foundation in all work (presentations, publications, theses, etc.) resulting from the Summer 2024 award
Notify Professor Carey of publications, public exhibits, or presentations resulting from the award

Distribution of Funds

This Research Award will be paid out in two equal installments, one around August 1 after a progress report has been approved, and the other at the end of the Summer once the final research report has been approved by the faculty mentor and Professor Carey.

Please Note: If you are receiving federal financial aid, this award may affect your financial aid eligibility because the Summer Research Award counts as aid rather than compensation for employment. Students who receive federal aid have a responsibility to understand these federal and UO rules and to report all awards earned to the UO Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships.

Application Procedures

Submit an application with the following components:

a cover letter with all your contact information, student ID number, major or graduate program, GPA, and your faculty mentor name, department, and email address. This cover letter must also include a statement affirming that you meet all eligibility requirements and agree to fulfill all award expectations
a project proposal in an approximately one-page single spaced proposal that explains: (a) the justification for the project; (b) the proposed research questions; (c) the expected results; (d) the relationship of the project to humanities, climate change, environmental justice, and the cryosphere or Indigenous communities; and (e) your qualifications for this research
research plan and timeline of proposed activities, which should also name the type of final product (paper, art installation, etc.) you’ll eventually produce and your plan for conducting research and/or writing during summer
resume or CV
budget that explains (1) what you plan to use the Award funds for (note that funds to cover a stipend for your time devoted to research or writing is perfectly acceptable provided your time is not funded by another source); and (2) what other funding you do or don’t have, indicating precisely what those other funds do and do not cover.
The name and contact info for your faculty mentors/advisor, who will be contacted by Professor Carey. But note: your mentor does NOT need to submit a letter of recommendation.

Application Deadline: June 10, 2024

Application Submission

Submit applications as a single PDF document to Professor Mark Carey at carey@uoregon.edu

Questions: Contact Professor Mark Carey at carey@uoregon.edu

Glacier Lab Members Present on Climate and Glacier Justice

On Friday, March 1^st, 2024, Glacier Lab members presented a panel at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon. The panel was titled “Glacier Justice, Climate Change, and Indigenous Communities in the Pacific Northwest,” and the presentations covered research from two Just Futures Institute Initiatives managed by Glacier Lab director Mark Carey—the Indigenous Lifeways Initiative and the Ice, Society, and Climate Justice Initiative. Presenters on this panel included undergraduate students, Masters students, PhD students, and faculty, demonstrating a great diversity of ideas and research from the Glacier Lab. The research for these two initiatives and the various Glacier Lab presentations was funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Dara Craig and Sijo Smith present at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (photo from Jennifer O’Neal).

Below are the presentations by Glacier Lab members (in order of appearance).

Mark Carey, University of Oregon:

“Glaciers, Climate Justice, and Indigenous Communities—Educational Activities, Research Collaborations, and Student Projects”

Dara Craig and Sijo Smith, University of Oregon:

“Engaging Students in Anticolonial Research for Tribal and Academic Partnerships”

Gillian Miller, University of Oregon:

“Glacier Justice in the Labor Landscape”

Zachary Provant, University of Oregon:

“Climate, Hazards, and Justice in Juneau, Alaska”

Gillian Miller presents at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (photo from Mark Carey).

The Glacier Lab in DC: Navigating the New Arctic Community Meeting and Archival Research at the Library of Congress and National Archives

In March 2023, members of the Glacier Lab for the Study of Ice and Society traveled to Washington, D.C. for a National Science Foundation (NSF) conference and research at the Library of Congress and National Archives.

First, Glacier Lab director Mark Carey and graduate students Dara Craig, Zachary Provant, Nicole Schaub, and Sijo Smith attended the National Science Foundation’s 2024 Navigating the New Arctic Annual Community Meeting. They were joined by Glacier Lab alum Holly Moulton, who is now an assistant professor as West Virginia University. In addition to learning about knowledge co-creation and groundbreaking Arctic research projects, the Glacier Lab presented two posters at this Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) meeting. Dara Craig and Sijo Smith presented their research and community-oriented work on “Engaging Students in Anticolonial Research for Tribal and Academic Partnerships,” which was funded by a grant from the Andew Mellon Foundation. Mark Carey and Nicole Schaub presented “Framing Greenland Fjords: How US Media Outlets Can Undermine NNA Objectives.” They conducted this research with two Glacier Lab undergraduates, Olivia Black and Mira Cross, and it is part of Carey’s collaborative NSF project studying glacial fjords in Greenland. The NNA conference was a productive opportunity to listen to Indigenous keynote speakers, network with Arctic researchers, and learn more about conducting interdisciplinary NSF research.

Following the NNA conference, Glacier Lab members headed for the archives to conduct research. First, they completed the required trainings to enter the Library of Congress Reading Room. This gave them access to the Bernt Balchen papers—documents that detailed Balchen’s time as a pilot in Greenland. During this archival research, Glacier Lab members were looking for historical documents that discussed Balchen’s interactions with Greenlanders. After wrapping up at the Library of Congress, the Glacier Lab shifted their attention to National Archives I. At this location, they combed through U.S. Coast Guard documents to find early military activity in Greenland. Similar to the Bernt Balchen papers, the Glacier Lab was hunting for documents that illuminated U.S. Coast Guard interactions with Greenlanders—especially near U.S. military bases. This research not only advanced Mark Carey’s collaborative NSF-funded project on Greenland fjords—it also provided the graduate students with an opportunity for training in collaborative archival work.

Beyond the NNA conference and the archival research, the Glacier Lab used the trip to D.C. as an opportunity to spend time together off campus and enjoy the capitol’s culture and history. In the evenings, the groups visited museums, walked the mall, and laughed in underground pubs. Nicole Schaub described it well:

“Sharing this experience was an invaluable opportunity to learn from and work with other Glacier Lab members. From navigating the National Archives, to engaging at the NNA conference, to exploring the sites of the Washington Mall, we worked together in a variety of contexts, strengthening both the academic and the interpersonal bonds that are essential to collaboration.”

Australian environmental historian visits Glacier Lab

Weaving worlds: Wetlands and multispecies politics of plants
Associate Professor Emily O’Gorman, Macquarie University, Australia
Speaking at the Geography Department Colloquium on March 16th, 2023 at 4pm. Condon 106.

Abstract below.

Wetlands in Australia have been important sites of political engagement and activism for many Aboriginal groups, who seek to care for Country, and strengthen their rights and roles in the management of water and particular sites. This paper engages with the contemporary weaving practices of three Aboriginal women at different wetland sites as they use this practice to enact ongoing connections to Country, a term used by Aboriginal people to refer to the nourishing interconnections between multiple beings. It particularly develops in conversation with Danielle Carney Flakelar, a Wailwan woman who continues to care for the Macquarie Marshes in a range of direct and indirect ways. Weaving draws us into multiple temporalities and particular multispecies relationships, involving plants and people, as well as many others. By focusing on weaving this paper shows that the concerns of Wailwan and other Aboriginal groups, concerns which may seem disparate to others, are in fact intimately connected. It aims to provide a more complex, richly woven, understanding of what is at stake in the lack of water in wetlands. Weaving interconnects generations and Country, water politics, and access to wetlands. In this way, this paper engages with the plants used for weaving as agents of and for postcolonial and multispecies politics.

Undergraduate Summer Research Assistant: Call for Applications

Undergraduate Summer Research Assistant for Arctic, Greenland, and social-environmental research

Hours: 15-25 hours per week during summer (flexible schedule)
Hourly Wage: $15.00 per hour
Location: flexible
Start Date: June 2022
Supervisor: Professor Mark Carey
Application Deadline: June 10, 2022

Job Description: Interested in doing research on an interdisciplinary National Science Foundation funded grant focusing on Greenland fjords, Indigenous communities, glaciers, icebergs, environmental change, and oceans? Do you like interdisciplinary research that links the natural sciences and social sciences? Would you like to join a lab group exploring a variety of social-environmental topics? Professor Mark Carey of the Environmental Studies Program and Geography Department is looking for responsible, self-motivated undergraduates to serve as research assistants for summer 2022 and possibly beyond.

Successful research assistants may be invited to join the Glacier Lab on a longer-term basis. Past research assistants and Lab members have co-authored published articles, gone on research trips (even to Peru), won grants and fellowships, and gotten into excellent graduate programs after graduation, most recently to Berkeley and Duke. Research assistantships like this one in the Glacier Lab allows students to work alongside Professor Carey and an array of graduate students to help advance professional training in ways far beyond typical coursework.

Qualifications: Responsible, reliable, self-directed, attention to detail. Research skills. Any major and any education level, from freshmen to juniors at UO (seniors ineligible if graduating this spring or summer).

Application Deadline: June 10, 2022

To Apply: Please send your application that includes the following materials BY EMAIL to Mark Carey: carey@uoregon.edu:

cover letter including the following information: (a) your qualifications; (b) your interest in this particular position; (c) explanation for how the position fits into your broader academic and career goals;
Resume listing your GPA and relevant coursework;
Names and contact info for two references (letters of recommendation not required).

Research in the Avalanche Capital

Fieldwork report by Environmental Studies PhD candidate and Glacier Lab member Zac Provant.

When I arrived in Juneau on March 11th, 2022, winter disasters were on people’s minds. In December 2020, Haines, Alaska experienced a deadly landslide that destroyed houses and killed two people. In February 2021, neighborhoods in downtown Juneau were evacuated due to extreme risk of historic avalanches. On March 24th, 2022—while I was in Juneau studying avalanches—Anchorage was hit by a massive avalanche that left debris as deep as 80 feet between houses and across roads.

This ongoing attention to winter hazards in Alaska reflects a longstanding awareness that Alaskan mountain ranges are dangerous places to live. In Juneau, people have a particularly infamous relationship with avalanches and landslides. For decades, news reporters and scientists have spread stories of disaster: National Geographic Magazine called Juneau “the nation’s worst risk for an avalanche disaster”, and in the 1950’s avalanche science legend Ed LaChapelle kicked off the decadal cycle of experts recommending no more development in certain parts of downtown Juneau. As Tom Mattice—Juneau’s Emergency Operations Manager—described in an interview with local news, avalanche scientists visiting Juneau all say the same thing: “we can’t believe you built here.”

Image 1. A natural avalanche barreling down the Behrends avalanche path. These slides occur every year, often coming within 100 meters of houses. An avalanche large enough to damage houses has not occurred since 1962. Image from the City and Borough of Juneau.

As visualized in the image above, Juneau’s concern for avalanche and landslide risk is not simply a detached fear of potential destruction based on expert opinions, avalanche forecasts, or over-protective regulations. There have been hundreds of dangerous avalanches in Juneau since it was developed as Alaska’s first mining town in the late 19th century. A document buried in a City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) file cabinet lists many of these events, with the first recorded avalanche wiping out 3 cabins in 1887 and the well-known 1962 avalanche on the Behrends path destroying “numerous buildings, vehicles, and trees.” Many currents residents also have a clear memory of the 2008 avalanche that destroyed Alaska Electric Light and Power facilities and caused an energy crisis lasting nearly six months. A resident of a downtown hazard zone told me she paid over $3000 for electricity alone over that six-month period—a cost her family really couldn’t afford. This same woman had to evacuate her home in 2021, and she showed me her own recent cellphone video of an avalanche flying down the mountain to fully cover Thane Road. To her—and to everyone I spoke with in Juneau—deadly avalanches and landslides aren’t an abstract, back-of-mind risk like the Cascadia earthquake or the Yellowstone eruption. These winter hazards are a part of Juneau’s history, and this history plays an important role in residents’ everyday experiences.

In response to this long history of environmental disaster, local news stations, city officials, and avalanche experts have worked through various options for hazard mitigation in Juneau. This includes special avalanche and landslide property insurance, development and zoning regulations, avalanche forecasting, engineering projects, and home buyouts. The CBJ engages all of these mitigation options except home buyouts, which Tom Mattice tells me won’t realistically happen until another massive avalanche ends in tragedy. Residents in high hazard zones like the Behrends neighborhood and White subdivision have additional forms of insurance, the CBJ has regulations for property development in hazard zones, organizations like the Department of Transportation and Alaska Electric Light and Power employ their own private avalanche forecasters, and engineering projects are repeatedly proposed and constructed to protect public and private property.

Image 2. This current official avalanche and landslide hazard map was adopted in 1987 and is based on science from the 1970’s. There have been multiple attempts to update the downtown hazard maps, but these newer maps have not been adopted due to concerns about increased development regulations, property values, and insurance premiums. Image from the City and Borough of Juneau.

Image 3. Mike, Alaska Electric Light & Power’s avalanche forecaster, digs a pit to check snow stability on a steep slope near the Snettisham Dam. There are powerline towers at risk of being destroyed by an avalanche, so AEL&P regularly tests snow stability during dangerous conditions and conducts avalanche mitigation if necessary (often using a helicopter and daisy bell). Image from Zac Provant.

Yet when people talk about hazards and hazard mitigation in Juneau, they often fail to contextualize how people actually experience avalanches and landslides as a part of their daily lives. Of course, people don’t experience hazards universally—a fact that is clearly demonstrated by the high risk of a deadly avalanche or landslide in multiple downtown zones and the impossibility of a slide a few miles away in the Mendenhall Valley. However, it is not just exposure to hazards that influences someone’s vulnerability. There are also significant differences in how people experience the impacts of avalanche and landslide risk, such as accessing insurance, navigating development regulations, comprehending hazard maps and avalanche forecasts, and absorbing the cost of damages or property value changes. An illuminating example of this can be found in Rebecca Elliot’s paper “Scarier than another storm“, which looks at how people experience NFIP flood rate insurance maps. In order to understand how the many forms of hazard mitigation will or won’t help keep people safe in Juneau, I believe that it is important to examine the often-overlooked impacts of hazard risk in people’s everyday lives.

Guided by scholarship in unnatural disasters and environmental justice, I see hazard vulnerability as being produced within a system rather than as a preexisting condition for marginalized people (see: Marino & Faas, 2020). My research therefore unpacks how actors and institutions in Juneau influence the way hazard vulnerability materializes within the city. Do the mitigation strategies for avalanche and landslide risk help some people while disadvantaging others? Do wealthier residents have different experiences with hazard risk given their access to engineering consultants, insurance options, and political power? How are the avalanche experts, local officials, and residents addressing climate change as a component of hazard risk and vulnerability?

My research trip to Juneau in March 2022 jumpstarted an exciting new stage for my dissertation fieldwork and data analysis. I left with a solid foundation of key research themes and thought-provoking stories. I conducted 17 informal interviews with residents, city officials, non-profit directors, and avalanche experts, and I collected hundreds of pages of unpublished documents on the history of avalanche and landslide management in Juneau. My next steps include remote interviews, document analysis, and of course more time in Juneau. I will continue to examine how people in hazard zones influence, are erased from, and are impacted by hazard mitigation stories and strategies. As climate hazards become more frequent and more severe—from hurricanes to heat waves to avalanches—I offer the overlapping projects of hazard mitigation and climate adaptation a new approach that helps contextualize how vulnerability is actually experienced in a local community.