Shari Gearheard

Research Scientist II
PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2004
Shari Gearheard is based in Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada.

Specialties [top]

Human-environment interactions; traditional knowledge research; Arctic environment and change; Inuit knowledge; participatory research; innovative technologies and methodologies; linking Indigenous and scientific knowledge

Recent Highlights [top]

• February 2012: Gearheard traveled to Nepal with a group of Inuit from Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada. The team exchanged knowledge and ideas with Nepalese and Tsumbas, residents of the Tsum Valley, a high alpine region experiencing rapid environmental change, much like the Arctic.
• May 2011: Gearheard accepted an invitation to hold the 2011 Dr. Grant Ingram Distinguished Lectureship at the University of British Columbia. She shares the lectureship with fellow Clyde River residents Esa Qillaq and Raygee Palituq.
• January 2011: Gearheard's research was featured in the German magazine GEOlino: Wetter wechsel in der Arktis (PDF file, 7.5 MB).
• October 2010: Gearheard traveled to Boulder, Colorado, with six Inuit hunters and Elders for project meetings and presentations at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, as well as presentations at Poudre High School in Fort Collins, regarding current collaborative weather research in Clyde River, Nunavut.
• September 2010: Gearheard worked with Inuit experts and visiting scientists to complete the installation of automated weather stations that make up the new Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River) weather network.
• August 2010: Gearheard contributed to Ice is nice!: All about the North and South Poles, part of the Cat in the Hat's Learning Library series.
• June 2010: Science magazine profiled Gearheard's climate research and collaborations with Inuit hunters in Trusting the Public.
• December 2009: Gearheard presented "Using Traditional Knowledge in Climate Change Decision Making" at the Inuit Circumpolar Council, an official side event at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15).
• June 2009: The BBC filmed Gearheard and Inuit hunters working on the Igliniit Project for a documentary, Frozen Planet, which is scheduled for release in 2011.
• April 2008: "Silavut: Inuit Voices in a Changing World" opened, featuring Shari Gearheard's research in Inuit communities. The exhibit runs from April 15, 2008, through May 1, 2009, at the University of Colorado Museum in Boulder. For more information, see the University of Colorado Museum Web site.
• April/May 2008: Gearheard collaborated with Inuit hunters and Elders in Clyde River, Nunavut, to assess local sea ice conditions as part of the Siku-Inuit-Hila project.
• February 2008: Natural History magazine, featured an article about Shari Gearheard's work in Nunavut, "A Change in the Weather" (PDF, 1.2 MB)
• 2007: A film crew stayed with Shari Gearheard and Andy Mahoney in Qaanaaq, Greenland, during their 2007 fieldwork. View the resulting documentary, "Inuit Isaannit Silaannaq," on the Kalaallit Nunaat Radioa TV Web site. (In Greenlandic; interviews with Gearheard and Mahoney are in English)
• May 2007: Collaborated with Iñupiat whalers and Elders in Barrow, Alaska, to assess local sea ice conditions as part of the Siku-Inuit-Hila (Sea ice, people, and weather) project
• March 2007: Collaborated with Inughuit hunters and Elders in Qaanaaq, Greenland to assess local sea ice conditions as part of the Siku-Inuit-Hila project
• November 2006: Completed projects with the community of Clyde River, Nunavut, related to changing local sea ice and traditional knowledge of plants
• February 2006: Finished appointment to the National Academy of Science "Designing an Arctic Observing Network" study committee
• December 2005: Completed postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University with a fellowship from the NOAA Postdoctoral Program in Climate and Global Change
• 2005: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) released. Gearheard was co-lead author of Chapter 3, "The Changing Arctic: Indigenous Perspectives"

Upcoming expeditions [top]

May 2011: Gearheard will lead site visits to the Kangiqtugaapik Automated Weather Station network and host meetings with Inuit weather forecasters and experts

When not conducting research, Shari can be found working with her 21 Inuit sled dogs. For the past few years, Shari and her husband have been participating in the Nunavut Quest long distance dog sled race. A new film by Piksuk Media documents the 2010 Quest and includes Shari and Jake's team. The film will be released in 2011. For more information, see the Nunavut Film Web site.

Current Research [top]

• Ongoing collaborative work with Inuit hunters and Elders to document Inuit knowledge of climate and environmental change
• Characterizing local-scale sea ice and assessing local sea ice changes by linking Inuit knowledge and scientific measurements
• Assessing changing weather and wind patterns at east coast of Baffin Island by linking Inuit knowledge and meteorological station data
• Developing innovative data collection and management tools to help document, preserve, and communicate local and traditional environmental knowledge
• Working with Inuit women in Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut, to understand women's roles in local subsistence systems and sharing networks, as well as women's knowledge of the environment, and how these have been affected by environmental and social change

Current Projects [top]

The Dynamics of Human-Sea Ice Relationships: Comparing Changing Environments in Alaska, Nunavut, and Greenland (also referred to as the "Siku-Inuit-Hila" project)

Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA)

Igliniit Project

Collaborative Research: Linking Inuit Knowledge and Local-Scale Environmental Modeling to Evaluate the Impacts of Changing Weather on Human Activities at Clyde River, Nunavut

Inuit Women and Subsistence: Social and Environmental Change

Activities [top]

Member, Board of Trustees for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS)/ Fondation Canadienne pour les Sciences du Climat et de l'Atmosphère (FCSCA)

Member, Scientific Committee, IGLO (International Action on GLObal Warming)

Volunteer Adult Literacy Instructor and Math Instructor, Arctic College, Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada

Member, Association of American Geographers (AAG)

Member, International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA)

Co-chair of the Clyde River Research Committee and the Ittaq Heritage and Research Centre of Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada

Dog sledding and learning to train and care for Canadian Inuit dogs

Publications [top]

2012

Pulsifer, P., S. Gearheard, H. Huntington, M. A. Parsons, C. McNeave, H. McCann. 2012. The role of data management in engaging communities in Arctic research: Overview of the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA). Polar Geography, doi:10.1080/1088937X.2012.708364.

2011

Gearheard, S., C. Aporta,G. Aipellee, and K. O'Keefe. 2011. The Igliniit project: Inuit hunters document life on the trail to map and monitor arctic change. The Canadian Geographer 55(1): 42-55, doi:10.1111/j.1541-0064.2010.00344.x.

Gearheard, S., H. Huntington, M. Parsons, C. McNeave and P. Pulsifer. 2011. Exchanging and Sharing Knowledge with Local Stakeholders – ELOKA. In Understanding Earth's Polar Challenges: International Polar Year 2007-2008, eds. I. Krupnik, I. Allison, et al., 581-584. Edmonton, Alberta: CCI Press.

Huntington, H. P., S. Gearheard, A. R. Mahoney, and A. K. Salomon. 2011. Integrating Traditional and Scientific Knowledge through Collaborative Natural Science Field Research: Identifying Elements for Success. Arctic 64(4): 437-445.

2010

Dowsley, M., S. Gearheard, and N. Johnson. 2010. Should we turn the tent? Inuit women and climate change. Études/Inuit/Studies 34(1): 151-165.

Gearheard, S., G. Aipellee, and K. O'Keefe. 2010. The Igliniit Project: Combining Inuit knowledge and geomatics engineering to develop a new observation tool for hunters. In SIKU: Knowing Our Ice: Documenting Inuit Sea-Ice Knowledge and Use. Eds. I. Krupnik, C. Aporta, S. Gearheard, G. Laidler, and L. Kielsen Holm, 181-203. London: Springer.

Gearheard, S., M. Pocernich, R. Stewart, J. Sanguya, H. P. Huntington. 2010. Linking Inuit knowledge and meteorological station observations to understand changing wind patterns at Clyde River, Nunavu. Climatic Change 100(2): 267-294, doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9587-1.

Gearheard, S., and J. Sanguya. 2010. Preface. In SIKU: Knowing Our Ice: Documenting Inuit Sea-Ice Knowledge and Use. Eds. I. Krupnik, C. Aporta, S. Gearheard, G. Laidler, and L. Kielsen Holm, ix-x. London: Springer.

Huntington, H. P., S. Gearheard, and L. Kielsen Holm. 2010. The power of multiple perspectives: Behind the scenes of the Siku-Inuit-Hila project. In SIKU: Knowing Our Ice: Documenting Inuit Sea-Ice Knowledge and Use. Eds. I. Krupnik, C. Aporta, S. Gearheard, G. Laidler, and L. Kielsen Holm, 263-281. London: Springer.

Krupnik I., C. Aporta, S. Gearheard, G. Laidler, and L. Kielsen Holm, eds. 2010. SIKU: Knowing Our Ice: Documenting Inuit Sea-Ice Knowledge and Use. London: Springer.

Weatherhead, E., S. Gearheard, and R. G. Barry. 2010. Changes in weather persistence: Insight from Inuit knowledge. Global Environmental Change 3: 523-528, doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.02.002.

2009

Huntington, H. P., S. Gearheard, M. Druckenmiller, and A. Mahoney. 2009. Community-based observation programs and Indigenous and local sea ice knowledge. In Field techniques in sea-ice research: A sea-ice system services approach. Eds. H. Eicken, R. Gradinger, M. Salganek, K. Shirasawa, D. Perovich, and M. Leppäranta, 345-364. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.

Mahoney, A., S. Gearheard, T. Oshima, and T. Qillaq. 2009. Sea ice thickness measurements from a community-based observing network. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90(3): 370-377.

2008

Mahoney, A., and S. Gearheard. 2008. Handbook for community-based sea ice monitoring. NSIDC Special Report 14. Boulder, Colorado: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Stroeve, J., M. Serreze, S. Drobot, S. Gearheard, M. Holland, J. Maslanik, W. Meier, T. Scambos. 2008. Arctic sea ice extent plummets in 2007. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 89: 13–14, doi:10.1029/2008EO020001 .

2007

Barry, R. G., R. Armstrong, T. Callaghan, J. Cherry, S. Gearheard, A. Nolin, D. Russell, and C. Zaeckler. 2007. Chapter 4: Snow. In Global outlook for ice and snow, ed. United Nations Environment Programme, 39-62. Hertfordshire, England: Earthprint.

Gearheard, S. and J. Shirley. 2007. Challenges in community-research relationships: Learning from natural science in Nunavut. Arctic 60(1): 62-74.

2006

Gearheard, S., W. Matumeak, I. Angutikjuaq, J. Maslanik, H. P. Huntington, J. Leavitt, D. Matumeak Kagak, G. Tigullaraq, and R. G. Barry. 2006. "It's not that simple": A collaborative comparison of sea ice environments, their uses, observed changes, and adaptations in Barrow, Alaska, USA, and Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada. Ambio 35(4): 203-211.

Meier, W. N., J. Stroeve, and S. Gearheard. 2006. Bridging perspectives from remote sensing and Inuit communities on changing sea ice cover in the Baffin Bay region. Annals of Glaciology 44(1): 433-438, doi:10.3189/172756406781811790.

2005

Gearheard, S. 2005. Using interactive multimedia to document and communicate Inuit knowledge. Études/Inuit/Studies 29(1-2): 91-114.

Huntington, H. P., and S. Fox. 2005. The changing Arctic: Indigenous perspectives. In Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), eds. C. Symon, L. Arris, and B. Heal, 61-98. New York: Cambridge University Press.

2004

Huntington, H. P., T. V. Callaghan, S. Fox Gearheard, and I. Krupnik. 2004. Matching traditional and scientific observations to detect environmental change: A discussion on Arctic terrestrial ecosystems. Ambio 33(7): 18-23.

2003

Fox, S. 2003. When the weather is uggianaqtuq: Inuit observations of environmental change. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Geography Department Cartography Lab. Distributed by National Snow and Ice Data Center. CD-ROM.

Jolly, D., S. Fox, and N. Thorpe. 2003. Inuit and Inuvialuit knowledge of climate change in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. In Native Voices in Research: Northern and Native Studies, eds. J. Oakes and R. Riewe, 280-290. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Native Studies Press, University of Manitoba.

2002

Fox, S. 2002. "These are things that are really happening”: Inuit perspectives on the evidence and impacts of climate change in Nunavut. In The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, eds. I. Krupnik and D. Jolly, 12-53. Fairbanks, Alaska: Arctic Research Consortium of the United States.

Search for more articles by Shari Gearheard in Google Scholar.

Related Resources[top]

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)

Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic

Ittaq Heritage and Research Centre, Clyde River, Nunavut

Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River) Weather Station Network

When the Weather is Uggianaqtuq: Inuit Observations of Environmental Change