Sarah Clement

Sarah grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where her family helped cultivate a deep love of learning outdoors. That love has been a throughline in Sarah‘s adult life: she studied environmental education in her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR and Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, and she taught outdoor and environmental education at a variety of organizations in Colorado, Vermont, Oregon, and Washington.

Sarah moved to Alaska in 2018 to continue working with youth in outdoor and environmental education programs. Along the way, she took the opportunity to continue her own learning with Katie Spellman on the Fresh Eyes on Ice project, a community and citizen science project studying river and lake ice in Alaska. She studied K-12 students’ learning through participating in Fresh Eyes on Ice as well as the nature of community and citizen science in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Sarah graduated with a PhD in Natural Resources and Sustainability from UAF in 2025. She currently works with the AK CASC as a postdoctoral researcher. Her work includes studying how scientists think about the concept of “actionable science” and what institutional structures support the implementation of actionable science. Sarah is also continuing her work with Fresh Eyes on Ice, examining the effectiveness of pairing K-12 community monitoring teams with scientists from federal agencies to support long-term ice monitoring in communities. 

Sarah lives in Fairbanks with her husband Travis, their daughter Izetta, and husky-lab Lewis.