Retired economics professor Gunnar Knapp and Michelle Bartlett, director of summer sessions and lifelong learning at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, are being honored for their academic leadership at the university.
Both were named on July 31 as winners of the 2017 Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence, which includes $10,000 apiece for their contributions to the university.
Knapp is an internationally recognized scholar for his research on fisheries markets and management of fisheries resources. He retired in 2016 after 35 years as an economics professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. As director of ISER from 2013 through 2016, Knapp worked to engage Alaska residents on fiscal challenges and options facing the state.
Knapp’s work “defined excellence and raised the university’s profile throughout Alaska as an educational institution,” said Cliff Groh, chair of Alaska Common Ground, a non-profit focused on Alaska’s public policy issues. “His efforts in understanding Alaska’s fiscal problems and possible solutions were respected across the ideological spectrum.”
Knapp began his career at ISER in 1981 after receiving a bachelor of arts and doctorate in economics from Yale University.
Bartlett holds a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy from Washington University and a master of arts in special education from St. Louis University.
She began her career at Tanana Valley Community College in Fairbanks, developing courses to meet community needs.
