“I gained an appreciation of the many factors—in addition to science— that policymakers must consider when writing policy.”

 Summer Responsibilities: Alie drafted over 50 scoping comments that help organizations align their permit requests with state and federal regulations. She also performed a statistical analysis of two years of scoping documents to determine areas of greatest activity, helping the commission better prioritize requests and distribute workload.

Background: Alie’s research aims to reconstruct the behavior of Antarctica’s least stable glaciers through recent millennia using marine sediment cores, knowing that changes at the poles will affect people in coastal communities at all latitudes.  She began exploring her interest in science-based policymaking through an internship with the United Nations Environment Programme in 2018, during which she covered hearings on such topics as sustainable fisheries and challenges faced by Indigenous communities in the Arctic.