North Slope Science Initiative seeks advisory panel members

Nominations are due Oct. 14 for new members for the North Slope Science Initiative’s Science Technology Panel. The 15-member panel of scientists and technical experts plays a critical advisory role for the NSSI and its Oversight Group by assisting with resource inventories, monitoring, and research needs for Alaska’s North Slope. Panel membership is diverse and may represent the oil and gas industry, subsistence users, traditional ecological knowledge, conservation o rganizations, academia, and other entities. Panel members may come from disciplines such as landscape ecology, petroleum engineering, civil engineering, geology, botany, hydrology, limnology, habitat biology, wildlife biology, biometrics, sociology, cultural anthropology, economics, ornithology, oceanography, fisheries biology, climatology, or North Slope traditional and local knowledge.

The Secretary of the Interior appoints members to the NSSI’s Science Technology Panel for three-year terms. While serving on the panel, members will be reimbursed for official travel (airline tickets, lodging and per diem) to participate on the panel.

For more information, instructions, and the nomination form, go to northslope.org/.

Congress established the NSSI under Section 348 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-58). This Act directs the NSSI to coordinate scientific data collections that will provide a better understanding of the terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems of Alaska’s North Slope. The NSSI also works to identify and prioritize information needs to address individual and cumulative effects of development activities and environmental change. The Secretary of the Interior is required to consult and coordinate with federal, state and local agencies and governments that have responsibility for land and resource management across the North Slope, including the marine environment, to ensure the comprehensive collection of scientific data.