My Inupiaq name is Anamaq. My mother is Rose Cysewski, and her parents are the late Peter and Theresa Mayac, originally from King Island in the Bering Straits. My father is the late Stephen Cysewski. My sister is Elizabeth Hancock with the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School in Anchorage. I grew up in Fairbanks and Anchorage. While this website is about me as a researcher, I rarely work alone. I am often trying to capture the rich community of researchers and Indigenous leaders I work with, or to create spaces to bring them together within Arctic research contexts.

I am an interdisciplinary researcher who researches Arctic research. The figure above provides an overview of the fields of research I intersect with, including Arctic research, Indigenous-led research, and the co-production of knowledge. Being interdisciplinary means I do not neatly fit into a box, and it is hard to communicate what I do in research to those outside the field, so I am going to describe it in scenarios below. 

In collaboration, I bring what people are doing to a meta-level. How do we collaborate better and measure success? Facilitate partnerships to write about their methodological approach, tell their story about how they work together, and why it works. What are the perspectives of success, and how do we navigate them to increase trust? I conduct evaluation research to improve research evaluation and to develop culturally-centered metrics, but I don't conduct project evaluations. I will admit that people can find it challenging to work with me because I analyze your work and actions (not your character) with a detailed eye. I often self-critique my own work and the work of those I collaborate with, which most people are not accustomed to. In these situations, I believe in transparency and in committing to understanding how to improve research activities to meet their intended goals.

I do community building in research spaces, leveraging my research expertise in convergence and collaboration, along with my professional expertise in facilitation. I love making safe spaces for bold dialogues. You may have seen me convening sessions at conferences or workshops. Within my institution, the International Arctic Research Center, I host workshops and discussions around how we can do co-production of knowledge and Indigenous engagement better. For developing the 10-year pan-Arctic research plan (ICARP IV), I co-led the observing team in establishing a collaboration structure and strategy to define societally relevant research priorities. The most rewarding work I do is bringing together those pushing for research that benefits Arctic Indigenous communities, through my co-produced research on boundary spanning and the Fostering Indigenous-Led Research Convergence Working Group. 

I serve as a subject-matter expert (SME) in Arctic research, Indigenous engagement, and methodologies. I have the honor and heavy responsibility of serving as Lead Author for the IPCC Assessment Report 7 (Working Group 1, Chapter 1).  While I am more often on the convening end of projects and meetings, when I do serve as an SME, it is because I have a landscape view of the topics in the diagram above. I have provided commentary on the influences and performance of the NSF Navigating the New Arctic Program (see my book chapter; commissioned presentation to NSF FIRE-PLAN workshop) or projecting the future of Indigenous-led research (commissioned presentation to the US Arctic Research Commission). I have niche expertise due to my research on research, as well as in my cultural and professional background (permafrost and engineering). I lean into my unique view of Arctic research and pay attention to broader structures, barriers, and actors. 

I characterize the bulk of my work as supporting collaboration within projects, community building across networks, and serving as a subject-matter expert. With this work, there is theory-to-practice and back to theory, which is where research comes in. What is effective? What is culturally responsive? I only work on projects where it is my research, paired with growing my abilities as a practitioner of convergence and co-production of knowledge work.