10/13/2026
Join the Alumni Association at UAS Evening at Egan: Climate Change and High-Altitude Agriculture.
Dr. Shae Frydenlund, Assistant Professor of Alpine and Arctic Studies within the Outdoor Studies Program, joins us Friday, October 16 for Evening at Egan to present Climate Change and High-Altitude Agriculture: The Work Plants Do.
From Dr. Shae Frydenlund:
“Apple trees are a harbinger of rapid change in the world’s high-altitude and subarctic agrarian communities. Previously inhospitable environments from the Nepal Himalayas to the Alaskan interior are becoming new heartlands of apple production. Why? Scientists cite warming temperatures and changing rainfall patterns as primary drivers of agrarian transition. But what if climate change isn’t the only, or even the most important, factor transforming these landscapes and livelihoods?
“In our study of the apple boom in Mustang, Nepal, coauthor Emily Yeh and I tell a different story of agrarian transition, in which apple trees themselves are the main character. Bringing apple trees from the background to the foreground shows how planty preferences and metabolic work intersect with human desires, hierarchies, and politics to bolster some attempts to capitalize on fruit trees and foil others, reshaping land and life near the ‘roof of the world’ (and possibly Alaska) in the process.”
Evening at Egan lectures are free and open to the public, held at 7 p.m. in the Egan Lecture Hall and streamed live via Zoom. Find the Zoom link and more details at uas.alaska.edu/eganlecture
