About Us
The mission of the Cooperative Research Units program:
- develop the workforce of the future through applied graduate education,
- deliver actionable science to cooperating agencies and organizations, and
- fulfill the training and technical assistance needs of the cooperators.
The Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is part of a nation-wide cooperative program, initiated in 1935, to promote research and graduate student training in the ecology and management of fish, wildlife and their habitats. The Alaska Unit, formed in 1991 by a merger of the Alaska Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit (est. 1950) and Alaska Cooperative Fishery Research Unit (est. 1978), exists by cooperative agreement among the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI).
The Alaska Unit sponsors graduate and post-doctoral research projects that range topically from productivity of fish and wildlife populations to effects of contaminants on coastal ecosystems, and geographically from southeast Alaska rain forests to the tundra of southwest Alaska and the North Slope. A Unit Coordinating Committee, composed of ADFG, UAF, USFWS, USGS, and WMI representatives, oversees the mission and program of the Unit.
Alaska Unit staff consists of a Unit Leader, four Assistant Leaders, a Fiscal Officer, and an Administrative Assistant. Unit scientists hold positions as research faculty with the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and have teaching appointments with the Department of Biology and Wildlife or the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
The Alaska Unit is housed in the Laurence Irving Building on the West Ridge of the University of Alaska campus in Fairbanks, Alaska.