Archive

Early literacy coach Bryan Bearss spends his weekdays coaching ASD teachers and his weekends coaching Iditarod athletes—the furry ones. This winter, when his musher friend suffered a season-ending injury, he stepped back on the runners to prep for the 2015 Iditarod.

Desiree's family moved from the Dominican Republic to Alaska when she was 10. She got her first taste of classroom-learning when enrolled in the Anchorage School District. She caught up quickly and realized, "I just wanted to continue without stopping."

Diego Barros doesn't shy away from new experiences—he's immersed himself in art, a variety of sciences, writing, snowboarding, travel. He won Sigma Sigma Sigma's "Mr. UAA" honor in October and now is off to a new adventure.

The first anniversary these UAA nursing students celebrate is January 4, the day they met on the Texas tarmac, awaiting the start of medic school. As serendipity, and the U.S. Army, would have it, they were side by side in alphabetical formation—Jordan Gray and Jessica Grimm. Read their story.

Former Seawolf star David Registe racked up accolades as a long jumper at UAA, even winning the program's first national championship. Now he's a professional athlete, fully focused on long jumping as he represents his parents' homeland of Dominica on the international track and field stage.

Biology grad student Molly McCarthy takes core samples of lake beds to calculate historic salmon populations and determine whether climate change impacts the stream of sockeye. Her research in the mountains of the Kenai has been a wet, windy, icy adventure, but her outlook is always sunny.

Mark Skolnick is a seriously busy man. He's a full-time lawyer, as well as a UAA flight instructor with a penchant for midnight flights. But whether his day is in the courtroom or in the clouds, he's always home in the evenings for family time (on top of juggling two careers, he's also a father of three).

Is this a meteorite? Was that an earthquake? Can I still make a living as a gold miner in Alaska? All day long, UAA alumnus Greg Durocher fields the nation's pressing geology questions for USGS, answering phone calls, emails and Facebook posts from across the country.

When Katey isn't helping fuel UAA with delicious coffee from Union Station Cafe in the Student Union, she's busy working her way toward a degree in social work.