Igor Krupnik
Anthropologist

Dr. Igor Krupnik joined the ASC in September 1991, first as an 'international visiting scholar' under the SI Fellowship program (1991-94) and later as a staff Ethnologist/Research Anthropologist (since August 1994). Igor was born in Russia where he trained as a geographer and cultural anthropologist. He has degrees in Geography (from Moscow State University), ethnography/cultural anthropology (Ph.D. 1977, Institute of Ethnology, Russian Academy of Sciences), and in ecology/subsistence management (Full Doctorate, 1991, Institute of Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences). His primary research fields are modern cultures, ecology and subsistence economies of the people of the Arctic. Igor has done extensive field studies in the Western Arctic, primarily in Alaska (St. Lawrence Island) and the Bering Strait area (since 1971), and also along the Russian Arctic coast.

Prior to his move to the Smithsonian, Igor was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (in 1991), and he worked for 15 years as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow (1976-1990). At the ASC, Igor is an extremely productive staff member. He is involved in several research, publication, exhibit and public-oriented initiatives that focus on the impact of global climate change, the preservation of cultural heritage, the ecological knowledge of native people and the history of science in the Arctic/North Pacific region. He serves as a member of the Advisory Committee for the NSF Office of Polar Programs and on Editorial Boards of two international Arctic journals, Arctic Anthropology and Čtudes/Inuit/Studies. He has produced, edited and co-authored five books, several collections of papers and more than 120 papers, and he is writing extensively on Arctic environment and native people, cultural preservation, native heritage resources, political and historical geography of the North, modernization and minority issues.

Click here to download a list of Dr. Krupnik's publications.