Stuefer awarded NASA research grant

Woman with coat
Svetlana Steufer

Svetlana Stuefer, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Environmental Engineering, was recently awarded a three-year NASA EPSCoR research award. 

Stuefer's project, titled Data assimilation and modeling to improve snow water equivalent assessment in Alaska," was selected last year by the Alaska NASA EPSCoR program from a pool of competitive pre-proposals.

The projects abstract says the goal is to contribute to the snow water equivalent uncertainty analysis that lays the foundation for NASAs Terrestrial Hydrology Program snow-focused observing system simulation experiment.

Snow water equivalent assessment is challenging in many areas of North America, but the situation is especially complicated in Alaska with the states sparse and diminishing snow observation network, extreme topographic gradients, and a vast spatial extent, the abstract reads.

The advantage of our group is that we have collected, documented, and maintained consistent and repeated ground-based 窪蹋勛圖厙 and [snow water equivalent] time series over a large region of northern Alaska."

The scope of work is also coordinated with the upcoming NASAs SnowEx field campaign that will take place near Fairbanks and on the North Slope in 20212023.

The project will focus on the region north of 64 degrees north latitude and continues the legacy of UAF snow research in the Arctic through collaboration with NASAs Terrestrial Hydrology Program and the Goddard Space Flight Center.

More information on NASA EPSCoR can be found at the

More information on the Alaska NASA EPSCoR program as well as our current Research CAN opportunity can be found at the .