Published Feb 29, 2024 by Jack Barnwell

Rock crushing, virtual reality, space simulations and rambunctious robotics were on full display Saturday at Usibelli Engineering Building on the University of Alaska Fairbanks Troth Yeddha Campus.

The College of Engineering and Mines hosted its annual open house event, cementing a weeklong series of events celebrating Engineering Week.

Staff, faculty and students volunteered efforts and interacted with budding engineers and interested members of the public about the various fields the college’s nine programs offer.

Visitors received a tour of the various labs, with activities set up for younger children.



Published Feb 29, 2024 by Carter DeJong

In a unanimous vote, the University of Alaska Board of Regents approved the designs for a new planetarium and Indigenous studies center for the Fairbanks campus.

Construction of the 65-seat planetarium is set to begin this spring and is projected to open in the fall of 2025, according to UAF news release.

The $8.3 million-dollar project will be an addition to the University of Alaska Museum of the North and is mostly funded by an anonymous private donation of $7.3 million.

“The planetarium is an incredibly successful product of a collaboration and alignment of goals with the Geophysical Institute, the Museum of the North and an incredibly generous donor who is very interested in helping their community,” Museum Director Pat Druckenmiller said.

Construction of the Troth Yeddha Indigenous Studies Center is scheduled to begin in spring 2025. The $53 million facility will be located between the Museum of the North and the Reichardt Building on campus.

The center is being built to facilitate UAF’s growing number of Indigenous studies students, said Charlene Stern, UAF’s vice chancellor for rural, community and Native education. A committee made up of professors and students in that field had a hand in the design of the facility.

“Really, it’s primarily going to be a welcoming space for students; places where they can get advising, where they can get different services,” Stern said.

Once the building opens, it will hold the Alaska Native Language Center and the Alaska Honors Institute as well as a “teaching kitchen” where students can prepare traditional Alaskan foods, Stern said.

Published Feb 29, 2024 by Iris Samuels

Alaska Aerospace, a public company that operates a rocket launch site in Kodiak, will be led by retired Alaska Air National Guard Col. John Oberst, the corporation said Monday.

The board had previously selected Sean Thomas for the position in August. But the board rescinded its offer to Thomas in November amid unexplained pushback from Dunleavy, who did not sign off on the hire, forcing the board to launch a new search for a chief executive after a monthslong selection process.

Dunleavy last year also removed the board’s longtime chair, Robert McCoy, director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. McCoy has not yet been replaced on the board, which is missing two members, after another member — retired four-star Gen. Carrol H. “Howie” Chandler — left the board in late 2023.