Captain’s Log: May 2026
Have you noticed a lot of crab-related art around town lately? That’s because of UW! As part of the Púkinn children’s art festival, we organized a project in connection with Edinborg culture house, where kids set out crab traps to learn about different animals around our waters. The kids then worked with local artist Þorgils Óttarr Erlingsson to create their own crab homes. Our CMM student Una Lilja Erludóttir, who is working on ocean literacy for her masters thesis, was in charge of the crab traps and science teaching. Una and I have also recently finished a wonderful collaboration with the primary school in Bolungarvík related to the crab traps, and the children there also had an art exhibition in the swimming pool. Stay tuned, there will be a lot more news to come related to how UW works with the children and local schools/museums in our area!
In the beginning part of May I traveled to Rhodos, Greece. I am an external advisor to the European project “MeCCAM” and their annual meeting was hosted by the Agricultural University of Athens. It was so great to follow how the project is developing and I learned a lot. In the Mediterranean they have a problem with an invasive lionfish and the small-boat fishermen are trying to fish the lionfish and create a market for it. It is quite tasty, I have to say!
Stakeholder meeting with fishermen, restaurant owners, and researchers.
Invasive species tasting event down at the harbor.
In the middle of May we held our annual general meeting. It was wonderful to welcome our good colleagues from University of Akureyri, Dr. Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir, Rector, and Vaka Óttarsdóttir, Director of Quality and Human Resources. Vaka held a lecture about how UNAK is responding to AI. A few years ago, the first response of most universities was to simply ban the use of AI, but now we are realizing we rather need to work with students on how to incorporate it into university activities. So together universities and students are learning about how to live and work with AI.
Vaka Óttarsdóttir, Catherine Chambers, Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir
We also had a nice visit from new friends at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. The students were on a travel course in Iceland learning about how individuals, organizations, and communities must work together to create ever greater coherence between environmental, economic, and social needs. We are looking forward to welcoming student groups from the University of Minnesota again!
In the last part of May I took part in the UArctic Congress in the Faroes, which you can read more about here. While I was there I took part in a beautiful project: they asked women who work and live in the Arctic to write their name on a slip of fabric, and then it will be sewn onto a large quilt. It is so wonderful to see the connections between us all.
