Recruiting a Graduate Student on Arctic Food Systems

Dr. Bronwen Powell (bxp15@psu.edu), the Geography Department, and the POLARIS project team are recruiting a graduate student to work on issues of Indigenous food systems, food sovereignty, diet and dietary change in relation to environmental and social change as part of an NSF funded project in Indigenous communities in Alaska. Funding is guaranteed through teaching and research assistantships for four years for PhDs and two years for Masters students, conditional on satisfactory performance.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience working with Native / Indigenous communities or belong to a Native / Indigenous community themselves. The students should be self-motivated, resourceful, and independent. Experience with mixed methods research including qualitative, participatory and/or community-engaged research would be helpful. A background in Indigenous food systems, nutrition, food sovereignty, geographies of food, political ecology and/or Indigenous studies would all be useful.

The student will join a transdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students in Penn State’s Departments of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education; the Department of Geography; and other units, as well as at other institutions. The POLARIS project, or Pursuing Opportunities for Long-term Artic Resilience for Infrastructure and Society, is an NSF funded project that studies the intersections of environmental change, migration, and food security and diet in coastal Arctic Indigenous communities and identifies the important assets (social, environmental, infrastructural, institutional) to help them adapt and become more resilient to climate-related changes. More information about the project can be found at (or by contacting Dr. Guangqing Chi): https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1927827&HistoricalAwards=false.

The students will participate in research activities of the POLARIS project and conduct research towards their PhD in coastal Alaskan Indigenous communities. The students are expected to develop their dissertation research based on the POLARIS project. They will also have an opportunity to pursue a dual-title degree in Demography, Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, and the Environment.

Interested students should contact Dr. Bronwen Powell (bxp15@psu.edu) before applying to the Geography Department’s graduate program. Instructions for applying to the PhD program in Geography are at https://www.geog.psu.edu/degree-programs/graduate-degrees/doctor-philosophy-phd.