Conferences play an intricate role in becoming a scientist and our large faculty and advisor network ensures our students have many interesting options to chose from during their career here at the University Center of the Westfjords and beyond. Each new cohort at UW starts their school year by attending the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík, they are then free to seek out and attend any conference they would like during their tenure here at UW.

Last week the 13th annual Arctic Frontiers conference was held in Tromsø in Norway. The conference is a global event, linking policy, business and science for responsible and sustainable development of the Arctic. With vast energy and marine resources, the Arctic region will be of significant interest to industrial, political and societal organizations across the globe.  The Arctic Frontiers conference aims to couple academia with decision makers from governments and businesses throughout the world to discuss the political frameworks needed to exploit these resources.

This year UW was well represented at Arctic Frontiers by Coastal and Marine Management students, alumni and instructors alike. Ignacio Baena Vega, a second year master´s student, was selected as an Arctic Frontiers young ambassador. These ambassadors played a vital role in in communicating the personal experience of attendees during the plenary sessions, side events, and the variety of workshops as well as panel discussions taking place during the conference week. Read more here.

Adriana Neeltje de Vries, a second year master´s student, gave a talk about her study on microplastics in the guts of fish in the Westfjörds of Iceland titled, “What did our dinner have for lunch?: Analyzing plastics by dissolving fish guts from Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, and saithe, Pollachius virens, from the west coast of Iceland”. Her findings indicate that microplastics may be found throughout the marine ecosystem, from the benthic to the pelagic zone, as more that 20% of the two fish species sampled (benthic and pelagic) had microplastics in their guts.

Another second year student, Madeleine Purver, also gave a talk and presented a poster related to her research on microplastics in Arctic Fjords titled, “Occurrence and Fate of Microplastics in Arctic Fjords”. Her findings indicate that microplastics are found throughout the ‘pristine’ Arctic and that contaminants can impact remote locations, not just highly populated areas. Adriana and Madeleine´s advisor is Dr. Pernilla Carlsson, a teacher here at UW and a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research.

UW alumni were also well represented at the conference. Zoe Walker, a recent graduate presented her recent work titled, “Pelagic-benthic coupling over winter in Kaldfjorden, Northern Norway”. Her findings indicate that pelagic-benthic coupling in Norwegian fjords is highly seasonal. This has strong implications for aquaculture in the Arctic region and stresses the importance of including seasonally and regionally appropriate environmental baselines in the management of open circuit aquaculture to mitigate environmental impacts at high-latitudes.

Alexandra Stocker, another UW student, also presented her work on marine traffic around Svalbard titled, “Ice edge retreating: influence on maritime traffic around Svalbard”. Alexandra hopes that by combining remote sensing data analysis with interviews of captains, port authorities, fisheries and local tourism companies she will be able to provide new insight into how sea ice variability affects economic activities in the Svalbard region. Zoe and Alexandra´s advisor is Angelika Renner, a teacher here at UW and oceanographic researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research in Tromsø.