Dr. Elizabeth Nyman and Dr. Rachel Tiller in Svalbard, august 2017
Senior Research Scientist Rachel Tiller, who leads the workpackage on Geopolitics and Stakeholders in the Regimes project, left for Houston, TX and a year as the Fulbright Arctic Chair at Texas A&M University at Galveston in August 2018. She will be staying there, working on Regimes issues with project Scientific Advisor – Assistant professor Elizabeth Nyman.
Together, they have been working on a paper on the port of Longyearbyen with another Assistant Professor at Texas A&M, Dr. Cassia Galvao of the Maritime Administration department. This project was presented at a conference in Kenya during the Fall of 2018, with the title “The Svalbard Archipelago: Port Development investment in the Context of the New Artic Routes”. It has since also been submitted for publication, and is awaiting feedback from reviewers.
Likewise, the two finished another paper, this time with Assistant Professor Ashley Ross of the Marine Sciences department at Texas A&M University at Galveston. This paper was on landslides and avalanche dangers in Svalbard, and has been submitted for publication.
Finally, Dr. Nyman and Dr. Tiller have also published an article on biodiversity protection in areas beyond national jurisdiction in Marine Policy called
Dr. Elizabeth Nyman during one of the informal meetings with Dr. Tiller
the Once and Future Treaty, in line with the challenges associated with ice melting in the Arctic and how it opens up the waters around Svalbard for exploitation, traffic and resource extraction. The paper looks into the challenges of protecting areas such as the Central Arctic Ocean.
In the same vein, the two, along with colleages from two other universities, also published in the Monkey Cage on the same treaty – see separate post for this.
Halfway through the Fulbright period, this has in other words been a very fruitful experience both professionally for those involved, but also for the Regimes project, which has seen a lot of dissemination activities come through because of this visiting scholar experience.