Montana State’s Zena Robert awarded doctoral fellowship for Native researchers

BOZEMAN - If someone dropped Zena Robert in the woods 30 miles outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, she wouldn't need a GPS to find her field site nearby.

Five years' worth of doctoral research trips bred an innate knowledge of the landscape, even on cross-country skis in 4 feet of snow.

"You'd never think you were walking on these massive ice features," said Robert, a fifth-year doctoral student studying earth sciences in the College of Letters and Science at Montana State University. "In areas not that far away, people have found mammoth tusks, saber-tooth tusks and all these cool ice formations within the permafrost beneath their feet. Walking around and knowing there's some mystery within the permafrost that we're trying to figure out is fascinating."

She's exploring how permafrost formation and thaw have shaped interior Alaskan hillslopes over a period of 90,000 years, a collaborative effort between MSU and the University of Alaska Fairbanks funded by a $850,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Permafrost, soil that remains frozen for at least two consecutive years, is essentially the "glue" holding Alaska's landscape together - it underlies approximately 85% of the state, Robert said. Permafrost thaw, therefore, will impact the structural integrity of numerous Alaskan homes, roads and pipelines if it accelerates due to rising temperatures.

Robert will write three research papers this year with support from the Elouise Cobell Dissertation Writing-Year Fellowship. She is one of 10 doctoral students nationwide to earn the fellowship this summer, which provides Alaska Native and American Indian researchers with mentorship and a $30,000 award for one year.

Cobell's legacy of activism and leadership hold special significance at MSU, where she received an honorary doctorate in 2002 and where a garden arbor was posthumously named in her honor last year outside American Indian Hall. Cobell fellows are selected for their commitment to advancing their fields, strong potential as scholars and leaders, and research that benefits tribal communities.

As permafrost thaws, its water flows into rivers that Alaska Native communities rely upon, changing the river water's geochemistry, said Robert, who is Aleut with family from Alaska's Pribilof Islands. River rusting, which occurs when iron and sulfide-rich bedrock interacts with permafrost thaw water, could impact the quality of drinking water and biodiversity of aquatic life. Robert and her team found indicators of acidic and iron-rich thaw waters entering streams in their designated hillslope, a site that's diverse in forest type and ice content.

"If you go a few hillslopes over, we see the same features in areas that have neighborhoods along these hills," Robert said.

Second-year doctoral student Halley Mastro, who is from New Paltz, New York, said she took inspiration from Robert's self-reliance during her first permafrost research trip with the team. Robert determined which roads were safe for travel and handled a massive drill to extract permafrost cores from the earth. Cores, 50 meters of which are stored at MSU, provide a time capsule of permafrost growth and erosion. Mastro will slice, date and analyze samples in the years to come.

"Zena broke a lot of internalized stereotypes of what women can and can't do that I didn't even realize I had in my mind," she said.

Robert possesses an ease with people that makes her a role model in and beyond the field, said Stephanie Ewing, a member of Robert's doctoral committee, Mastro's adviser and a professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agriculture. Robert takes nearly every prospective graduate student she meets to trivia night to show them around town - "and that is totally Zena."

Multiple students in Ewing's department have also shadowed Robert's previous fieldwork in Alaska.

"They came back blown away by the place and the setting, but also by being in Zena's orbit," Ewing said.

Robert, who calls Fairfax, Virginia, home, will step into a mentorship role full time after graduating from MSU in 2027. She received a grant through the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Program to teach at a tribal college, and she hopes to become an instructor in Bellingham, Washington. The grant is intended to help increase Ph.D.-level faculty in tribal education.

She said that as a shy undergraduate who feared presenting at research symposia, she once considered teaching inconceivable, but the thought isn't so scary now. As a graduate student, Robert has instructed an undergraduate earth sciences class and presented permafrost research at the American Geophysical Union conference with about 30,000 attendees.

"Helping students pursue higher education and supporting their research interests is motivating," she said.