Coeur Alaska Inc. $20,000 Donation Creates More Opportunities for Hands-on Undergraduate Work

In total Coeur Alaska has donated $124,000 to UAS and a total of $156,700 to the UA system since 2011. They have given $4,000 in a joint scholarship with HECLA and Southeast Conference and $32,700 to UAA for visiting professors of public policy.

Juneau, Alaska

Date of Press Release: September 4, 2018

Coeur Alaska Inc. $20,000 Donation Creates More Opportunities for Hands-on Undergraduate Work

UAS senior Mollie Dwyer spent her summer hiking up mountains with a backpack of test tubes to collect water samples from different stream sources. Last year she had her hands full of kelp assisting with research on their reproductive process.

Thanks in big part to her scholarship from Coeur Alaska Inc. Dwyer, a senior pursuing a B.S. in Environmental Science, Dwyer was able to dig into her studies quite literally during a paid internship through a collaboration of the US Forest Service, the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Laboratory and the University of Alaska Southeast. She is the latest recipient of the $2,000 UAS Coeur Alaska – Kensington Gold Mine Environmental Science Award which has just received another $20,000 donation from Coeur Alaska Inc.

Pursuing a B.A. in Environmental Science, Dwyer is doing what many UAS students pursue - hands-on internships that take advantage of community partnerships. Currently Dwyer is assisting Drs. Eran Hood and Jason Fellman along with U.S. Forest Service Soil Scientist David D’Amore in research that may provide clues to how changes in our environment impact Southeast Alaska both environmentally and economically.

For Dwyer the scholarship allowed her take part in a summer internship collecting water samples from stream sites that run off glaciers, snowmelt and wetlands. “We are looking at what isotopes are carried over as it travels over landscapes and soil,” Dwyer said. “At UAS we get a lot of work in the field and in the lab. We have gotten to be a part of every aspect of the process.”

The Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center, hosted by the US Forest Service and housed in the Juneau Forestry Science Laboratory, was established in 2009 with a goal of expanding and enhancing education and research opportunities for university students with a focus on the environmental and economic climate of the Pacific coastal temperate rainforest.

"Mollie's participation in our research project has provided her with valuable hands-on experience in aquatic ecology and helped to foster collaboration between UAS faculty and researchers at the Juneau Forestry Science Lab" says Dr. Eran Hood, professor of Environmental Science.

Research soil scientist Dave D’Amore of the U.S. Forest Service agrees. “We can do thousands and thousands more samples locally with student helpers.”

D’Amore says the collaboration between the US Forest Service and the university was no accident, the Juneau Forestry Sciences Laboratory was carefully planned and built on property adjacent to the UAS Juneau campus with a walking path that connects the two.

Two house poles honoring the heritage of the Auke Kwan land and carved by now UAS faculty member Wayne Price grace the entryway.

Together with the private support of Coeur Alaska Inc. these separate entities are combining resources and creating what Jan Trigg of Coeur Alaska describes as a synergy that is precisely what her company hopes to contribute to. “The whole idea behind creating the scholarship endowment is that we can contribute something that is sustainable and can help students long after the mine is gone.” Trigg said.

In total Coeur Alaska has donated $124,000 to UAS and a total of $156,700 to the UA system since 2011. They have given $4,000 in a joint scholarship with HECLA and Southeast Conference and $32,700 to UAA for visiting professors of public policy.

To find out more about the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center and sign up for their newsletter visit their website.

Find out more about the Juneau Forestry Sciences Laboratory, visit their website.

To add your support for student scholarships and other program support, visit the UAS Development Office's website or contact them at (907) 796-6320.