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2024 award recipients

• Brandon Boylan, teaching
• William Simpson, research
• Katie Spellman, service

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Brandon Boylan

2024 Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching Award

In numerous letters supporting his nomination, Boylan’s colleagues and students describe him as a model scholar-educator who upholds rigorous academic standards while offering generous encouragement and support to graduate and undergraduate students and colleagues.

Boylan’s expertise includes international relations and security, political violence, ethnic conflict, separatist movements, and Arctic politics and security. He joined UAF’s Department of Political Science, which he currently chairs, in 2013, and he has served as director of Arctic and Northern studies since 2020. Boylan co-founded the Model Arctic Council, an academic program that involves students from around the circumpolar North in collaborative learning exercises related to Arctic challenges and concerns.

Boylan holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Mercyhurst ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in Erie, Pennsylvania; a master’s in international studies from the University of Limerick in Ireland; a master’s of business administration from UAF; and a doctoral degree in international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.

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William R. Simpson

2024 Emil Usibelli Distinguished Research Award

Simpson is an environmental chemist known for his pioneering research into how the cold and dark winter climate of the Arctic affects the atmospheric processing of pollution. To support this work, he has developed novel spectroscopic instruments to measure trace gases and reactive radicals. He also conducts field experiments into Arctic ozone depletion events.

Simpson is the principal investigator for the Alaskan Layered Pollution and Chemical Analysis project, or ALPACA. This groundbreaking collaboration brought together scientists, public servants and community members to investigate how air pollution behaves in Fairbanks’ winter. In letters of support, Simpson’s colleagues noted that the combination of scientific research with community outreach and education produced results with significant implications for public health and policy in urban environments across the Arctic.

Simpson joined the faculty at UAF in 1997. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a mathematics minor from Swarthmore ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Stanford University.

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Katie Spellman

2024 Emil Usibelli Distinguished Service Award

Spellman is an ecologist and educator known for making science accessible, relatable and inclusive to all people. Born and raised in Fairbanks, she has devoted her career to sharing her expertise and passion for science with the people most affected by the changing climate: Indigenous communities and children.

Spellman has volunteered hundreds of hours mentoring K-12 students’ research, organizing science fairs and co-creating citizen science projects to address pressing local issues. Two example projects, Fresh Eyes on Ice and Winterberry, engage Alaska youths in researching native berry species and freshwater ice conditions to improve health and well-being, food security and safety.

Spellman received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Whitman ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in Walla Walla, Washington. She holds a master’s in biology and a Ph.D. in biological sciences from UAF, where she did her postdoctoral fellowship in education and outreach.