School of Marine and Environmental Affairs alumna Nicole Kanayurak ’16 was among the Fulbright Scholars Program alumni to lend her voice and experience to the 75th anniversary celebration of the illustrious program.

According to the release from the Fulbright Program, “Nicole is an Inupiaq from Utqiaġvik, Alaska, the northernmost point in the United States, who works at the municipal level to prioritize indigenous and traditional practices and community involvement in wildlife management. As a Scholar in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, she carried out comparative research in Iceland on communications infrastructure, food security and sustainable economies.”

As a Fulbright Scholar, Kanayurak travelled to Iceland to do some research and comparison on arctic food security between the Scandinavian site and her hometown back in Alaska. Her studies complimented the thesis work she had completed on polar bear co-management between the US Department of Fish and Wildlife and tribal governments. In turn, Kanayurak translated this knowledge and these experiences to a successful career.

Kanayurak currently serves as the Deputy Director for the Department of Wildlife Management as part of the North Slope Burrough Municipal Government. In the remarks she recorded for the Fulbright program, she describes the passion for her work:

“When your people have been excluded from hunting the bowhead whale or hunting ducks and that has always been your tradition for millenia, and you’re in a position where you have to ensure you have-whether it’s the scientific information or being able to work with the managers it makes it even more passionate to work to work in this role for my people.”