Assisting foreign universities in organizing field school trips here in the Westfjords is one of the tasks that the University Centre tends to. The majority of these groups come from universities in North America, one of them being the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont, USA. One of their summer programmes is taught in Iceland, Renewable Energy, Technology, and Resource Economics.

Part of this programme takes place in the Westfjord region and for the past years. Caitlin Wilson PhD student at the University of Iceland has held the position as programme director for the past years but decided to step down. Last summer Caitlin had two assistants, both University Centre alumni, former students of the Master‘s Programme in Coastal and Marine Management, Astrid Fehling and Alëx Elliott. They have both relocated to Ísafjörður and Astrid now also teaches one of the courses of the programme, the GIS (geographical information systems) course. Astrid has now been hired to the programme and will act as programme director this summer.

Astrid Fehling grew up in Hamburg, Germany. She came to Iceland in 2010 as a part time student of the Master‘s Programme in Coastal and Marine Management. Fallen in love with this place and having always having wanted to live close to the sea, she has stayed in Ísafjörður since. Astrid holds a bachelor's degree in Geography from the University of Bremen, Germany and then went for her master´s degree in Environmental Management from the University of Kiel, Germany. In her master's thesis, Astrid addressed the involvement of stakeholders in coastal and marine management projects, using a project from the Westfjords as a case study,  the Resource Utilisation Plan, Pilot Study on Arnarfjörður.

The University Centre congratulates Astrid on her new position. We are very much looking forward to collaborating with her.