Welcome!
COVID-19 Information
Due to COVID-19, our office is currently closed for in-person customer service and our staff are currently working from home to practice social distancing guidelines. We are checking voicemail and regularly responding to email during regular business hours: Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. To receive a callback, please leave your name, phone number, student ID number, and a brief message.
Visit the UAF COVID-19 website to learn how UAF is responding to the COVID-19 situation, find information for students and faculty and staff, as well as the latest UAF communications and policies, FAQs and resources.

About the Graduate School
The University of Alaska Fairbanks offers 17 Ph.D. programs, 49 Master’s degree programs, several Post Baccalaureate Certificate programs and a cooperative/collaborative Ph.D. program with the University of Alaska Anchorage. UAF enrolls approximately 1,500 students in graduate studies from all 50 states and territories, and countries from all over the world.
The Graduate School works with the Director and the many UAF graduate programs to provide guidance for your degree completion. We work closely with your department to follow your progress and are ready to help you with questions and concerns.
Graduate Student Spotlight
Yoko Kugo,
PhD Candidate
Enthogeography: Interdisciplinary Studies
Yoko Kugo is a student in the Arctic and Northern Studies Program working on her PhD in interdisciplinary studies. Her work focuses on the importance of Indigenous place names in understanding and supporting the relationships between people and their environment. Kugo is truly a UA student, having come to UAF after completing her BA at UAS and an MA at UAA. During her MA studies she had begun working with Yup’ik communities around Iliamna Lake to study their traditional and contemporary lifestyles. During that work Elders in these communities shared their concern that their Yup’ik place names were in danger of being lost.
Yoko chose UAF as the best place to earn an interdisciplinary PhD degree that combines Alaska history, Yup’ik language, cultural anthropology, and geography. She has been working with the communities to document the Yup’ik names of places around the lake and understand what the names reveal about the history of the region and how the region has changed over time. Yoko has helped communities document Yup'ik place names that had rarely been recorded.
Since beginning her PhD in 2016, Yoko has conducted eight ethnographic field trips to communities in the region. She uses a community-based participatory approach and oral history methods to work with communities and build rapport with community members. Yoko photographs specific sites and then shares those photos with Elders as she interviews them. In these interviews, Elders share stories about the sites and their names with her. The Iliamna Lake Elders have shared both their memories of the landscape and their family histories and so revealed their deep connections with their environment. Hearing these stories about sites where she has stood has given Yoko a deeper sense of place. She will be grateful if her dissertation project affirms the residents’ memories and enables them to connect their web of oral knowledge with written stories and visual maps. Yoko plans to use similar approaches in other Alaska remote communities to record and revitalize their languages and sense of place.
Her advice to incoming Ph.D. students is to focus on both learning how academia works and how to develop their own dissertation projects. If they already have identified a potential project when entering a Ph.D. program, they can begin seeking support by writing proposals when they first begin taking classes. She encourages all students to network with colleagues, including undergraduate students. She has learned much from teaching and mentoring undergraduates as part of her dissertation project. She also urges "students to eat well and take a good walk every day when they can. Getting fresh air is so important when writing and reading in a small den."
Fall 2021 Orientation for New Graduate Students
Thank you for choosing UAF! We look forward to meeting you during the Fall 2021 new graduate student orientation. More details coming soon!
At orientation, we will discuss getting started in graduate school, what to expect your first year, and how the UAF Graduate School team is here to help you.
Upcoming deadlines for funding oppportunities
- Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, Project Fellowship Program | Fall 2021 Application Opens: July 1, 2021
- Graduate School's Degree Completion Scholarship Program | Fall 2021 Application Opens: July 1, 2021
- Robert and Judy Belous Global Change Research Endowment | Application Deadline: February 15, 2021
For Students & Staff: please submit your payment memos for tuition, fees, and fellowship payments at the link below.
For the Spring 2021 semester, please submit memos no later than January 21 , 2021.
If you have any questions, please contact the Graduate School at uaf-grad-school@alaska.edu.
Discounted recreational (RECR) courses for non-resident graduate students
UAF Community and Technical College is once again offering to discount RECR courses for non-resident graduate students only.
If you would like to take a RECR course for the Spring 2021 semester, and are a non-resident graduate student, please fill out the online form by Friday, January 22.
Please note: In order to access the form, you will need to be logged into your @alaska.edu
email account.
If you have any questions about this process, please contact Martha Westphal at mmwestphal@alaska.edu or 907-455-2869.
Make sure you are not missing anything!
- For important information about dates, deadlines, requirements, funding opportunities, please subscribe to the Grad Academic Listserv: https://lists.alaska.edu/mailman/listinfo/gradacademic-l
- For information about local events, jobs, housing, sales, please subscribe to the Grad School Listserv: https://lists.alaska.edu/mailman/listinfo/gradschool-l
Don't miss out!
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Apr7
Deadline to Submit Thesis/Dissertation to ProQuest
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Apr15
Graduate Student Focus Group: Creative Communication
2:30-3:30 PM via Zoom
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Apr24