Map of Current Mission Threats

Setting the Stage 

Alaska is experiencing compounding impacts from several natural hazards including permafrost degradation, coastal erosion, invasive species, flooding, and wildland fire. Accelerated landscape change in regions with concentrated Department of Defense (DoD) assets, like Alaska, threatens mission continuity. The Arctic and sub-Arctic defense community is experiencing the need to adapt natural resource management to these changes, but there is a lack of formal connection pathways with the research community. Without an organized flow of information, there exists a gap to communicate the needs and priorities of DoD installation managers to the research community.

 

Our Approach

The Alaska Innovation Landscape Network (AILN, pronounced “eye-lean”) is one of several landscapes selected for development as part of ILN. AILN cultivates an innovative pathway between the research and end-user communities to rapidly identify vital research opportunities and address emerging needs. The novelty of this approach is realized by the agility of the program to take experiential input from the DoD installation management community and quickly apply it to targeted, responsive projects that produce results faster than traditional R&D project cycles.

AILN operates as a network of interagency and academic partners that seeks to close the gap between the development and implementation of new technologies that help installation managers adapt to landscape change. AILN accelerates development, refinement, implementation, and scaling of mature science and technologies for Arctic and sub-Arctic installation and research communities.

Compounding Natural Hazards in Alaska

Due to AILN’s needs-driven engagement with personnel on the ground, the breadth of SERDP-ESTCP’s investment in Arctic and sub-Arctic research is expanding to include compounding impacts of natural hazards in Alaska; including coastal erosion, flooding, invasive species, extreme heat, and landslides. These natural hazards reflect the complexity of the changing landscape in Alaska, and AILN is engaged with several Federal partners to leverage expertise and ongoing efforts.

 

AILN hosts annual workshops in Alaska aimed at facilitating collaboration and communication amongst the research community, DoD installation management (Fort Wainwright, Eielson Air Force Base, Fort Greely, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson) and interagency partners. Please reach out to ILN@noblis.org for more information about annual AILN workshops and past workshop materials. 

 

Partners

 

 

Meet the Coordinator

Michelle Michaels, Research Physical Scientist, US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory 

michelle.l.michaels@usace.army.mil

Michelle Michaels is the Arctic Innovation Portfolio Manager with OSD's Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP). She is leading the ESTCP Alaska Innovation Landscape Network (AILN) effort, an interagency network of collaborators with the goal of accelerated technology transfer for natural hazards adaptation technologies/tools/strategies specific to Alaska's needs. AILN focuses on built and natural infrastructure resilience for DoD and Federal partners. She has been employed at the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) as a Research Physical Scientist since 2018. Her technical background is in geospatial analysis, permafrost mapping and terrain characterization, and physical modeling.