Volcanology and film student's work featured on First Friday

May 5, 2017

Sarah Manriquez

UAF student Jill Shipman’s film, “Life in Infrared,” will be shown at Decision Theatre North’s First Friday event from 4-7 p.m. May 5 in the West Ridge Research Building Room 010.

Shipman is earning a doctorate in volcanology while also studying film and performing arts. Her film won first place in the video/interactive category of the 2017 Visualize This! competition organized by several UAF research development programs. The film and other winners of the data visualization and design competition will be displayed at the First Friday event.

“Life in Infrared” is a short film about the use of thermal infrared imaging that Shipman created for a presentation at the American Geophysical Union 2015 fall meeting. The film features an interview with volcanologist Jonathan Dehn from the UAF Geophysical Institute and case studies from applications in volcanology and Arctic biology.

Shipman directed and produced “Life in Infrared” in the Film Production I course taught by Assistant Professor Maya Salganek in the UAF Department of Theatre and Film. The scientific team included Dehn, Salganek, Peter Webley, Martin Harrild and Donavan Kienenberger. Ira Hardy and Kenneth Roberts provided filming support.

Shipman won the Outstanding Student Presentation Award in Public Affairs at the AGU 2015 fall meeting. “Life in Infrared" was also an AGU selection in 2016 and won Best Scientific MicroDoc at the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival.

The Visualize This! competition was developed by the Alaska National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, the National Institutes of Health's Institutional Development Award Network of Biomedical Research Excellence and the NIH's Biological Learning and Student Training.

The Department of Theatre and Film is part of the College of Liberal Arts, which is the largest of UAF’s academic units and includes arts, humanities, social sciences and language disciplines.

CONTACT: Naomi Horne, nehorne@alaska.edu, 907-474-6464

ON THE WEB: Decision Theatre North's First Friday event, http://www.dtn.alaska.edu/friday/; “Life in Infrared” on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEYMByR27EA