Biomaterials Lab
Plastic insulation like Styrofoam is commonplace in seafood packaging and buildings. But plastics never completely disappear, instead they break up into ever smaller particles or microplastic. These tiny particles are harmful to the soils, marine environment and wildlife, and may affect human health.
Researchers with the Biomaterials Lab seek to better understand the effects of these stray plastic bits. The team is working to solve the global plastic pollution problem by developing insulation that is recyclable, reusable, and biodegradable. Researchers combine design-thinking, microbiology, and physics to dream-up scalable biological materials that store carbon and provide a sustainable vital barrier from the elements.
Their key ingredients to de-carbonizing industries include beetle-kill spruce trees and renewable cellulose that is literally grown in a lab. The Biomaterials Lab is an active innovation platform for new bio-based materials and circular bio-economy solutions in the Circumpolar North. The lab uses norm-critical design thinking as a framework to tackle some of the most pressing environmental and public health problems facing the Arctic today.
NEWS & Stories
This year's annual Crime in Alaska report was recently released. Brad Myrstol, Justice Center Professor and Alaska Justice Information Center Director, discussed the data compiled from police agencies across the state with Anchorage Daily News.
UAA Justice Center Professor and Alaska Justice Information Center Director, Brad Myrstol, spoke with KNBA about the disproportionally high number of Alaska Native and American Indian inmates in the Alaskan and U.S. prison system.
Kimberly Russell was raised in Anchorage and is a 2008 UAA Justice graduate who currently works at McLaughlin Youth Center as a Social Services Associate II.
Back in the early 1990s, newspaper headlines were fixated on Rodney King and O.J. Simpson-two of the most renowned court cases of David Campbell's generation. In his early 20s at the time, David remembers how current events and an Introduction to Justice course finally piqued his interest enough to settle on a major.
J.R. Dull has his dream job-working with kids in the Bristol Bay Region and helping them stay out of trouble, and if they don't, helping them get the services they need to get back on track. J.R. is the supervising juvenile probation officer in Dillingham, Alaska, and is responsible for all the juvenile cases in the 32 villages in the Bristol Bay Region, an area of about 40,000 square miles. Born in Dillingham and raised in the village of New Stuyahok on the Nushagak River, J.R. moved back to Dillingham for high school, then on to Anchorage to pursue a major in justice at UAA.
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Phone: 907-786-6574
Email: nbbeckage@alaska.edu
