URSA announces AY2025-2026 Mentor Award recipients
Aug. 8, 2025
The Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity congratulates the following individuals who received an URSA AY2025-2026 Mentor Award.
URSA’s Mentor Awards offer funding support for faculty, researcher staff, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from all disciplines and all ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ-affiliated campuses* to engage undergraduate students on their current research and creative projects.
Della Hall
UAMN-Fine Arts
Student: Nic Young (Art)
Project Title: Addressing Long Standing Collection Management Dilemmas
The UA Museum of the North Fine Arts Collection Manager and an undergraduate student will address a variety of long standing issues commonly encountered in museum collections, developing the student’s collection management skills and preparing for a museum career. This project will entail student research, creativity, and problem solving.
Florian Hofmann
Geophysical Institute
Students: Lee Aeo & Alex Patton (Geoscience)
Project Title: Reconstructing the displacement of the Denali fault over the last 37 million years
Samples from a pluton that was split in half by the Denali Fault will be dated using
the 40Ar/39Ar method. This will reveal the displacement history of the Denali Fault
and provide insight into how the two sides of the fault have evolved since the separation
of the pluton.
Joseph Holt
English
Graduate Student Co-Mentors: Jamie Simpher & Katie Rowley
Undergraduate Students: Emiko Newman (Civil Engineering), Margaret Thomas (English) & Katina Whisel (Art)
Project Title: Leadership in the Creative Arts: Ice Box Literary Journal
Ice Box is the undergraduate literary journal for the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Each annual issue features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and artwork from about thirty students. With this URSA Mentor Award, student leaders will document the journal’s workflow (thereby assisting future editors) and produce the 2026 print edition.
* ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ-Affiliated Campuses include: Bristol Bay Campus, Chukchi Campus, Community and Technical College, Interior Alaska Campus, Kuskokwim Campus, Northwest Campus and Troth Yeddha’.
Please contact the URSA Office with questions: 907-450-8772; uaf-ursa@alaska.edu.