Last month UW sought to temporarily fill the position of master’s program coordinator for the two programs at UW, Coastal and Marine Management and Coastal Communities and Regional Development. Sixteen applicants expressed interest in the position, eight of which were located outside of the Westfjords. 

All applicants fit the minimum requirements for the position as these requirements were quite broad, however the review board chose the seven most qualified individuals for further interviews. The board was especially interested in applicants that were best qualified to work on projects which the program director was currently responsible for as well as working on projects related to the marketing of UW masters programs. Several of these applicants were more interested in part time positions than full time positions.

UW review board members thus chose to split the position of master’s program coordinator into two part time positions and offered the jobs to Ph.D. candidate Sigurður Halldór Árnason and to Project Manager Astrid Fehling.

Sigurður Halldór Árnason is an evolutionary ecologist and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iceland and Hólar University College. Sigurður has taught the research methods and statistics course for the Coastal and Marine Management program here at UW since 2017. He also worked as a teacher’s assistant for Plant Physiology courses at the University of Iceland. He has presented his M.Sc. and Ph.D. work at numerous conferences, both locally and abroad, and also worked at the plant genetics laboratory at the University of Iceland. Sigurður has a master´s degree in population genetics from the University of Iceland and a Bachelor of Science degree in ecology and evolution from the University of Hawaii where he also worked for The Center for Conservation, Research, and Training. He completed high school in New Jersey USA and is born in Ísafjörður, where he attended the local school until he was eight years old.

Astrid Fehling is a geographer with a master´s degree in Environmental Planning. She was born in Hamburg Germany and moved to Iceland in 2010 where she attended the Coastal and Marine Management program here at UW while also completing her master´s thesis. Since 2011 she has been a vital part of the UW faculty where she teaches Geographic Information Systems. Astrid became a temporary project manager at UW in January of 2018 managing the Development Fund for Immigration Issues, along with being charge of recruiting and organizing host families for the SIT program. Astrid also organized the CoastGIS 2018 conference which was held in September here in Ísafjörður by UW. Astrid will continue to be the driving force in these projects but will also take on other projects related to her new position at the UW as of January 2019.