Welcome back for the fifth episode of Sense of the Arctic, a podcast miniseries from the APECS Science and Diplomacy Project Group in collaboration with the Polar Times.

In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Vera Kuklina, a Buryat scholar from Ust-Ordynskiy Buryat Autonomous Okrug (now part of the Irkutsk region in Russia) who is currently a research professor in the Department of Geography at George Washington University. Dr. Kuklina has conducted and published research across a wide range of topics, including Arctic infrastructure, transport, and urbanization, as well as Indigenous resource management and resilience.   We speak about the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, how it is impacting research in Siberia, and how we can ensure the safety of research collaborators and communities whilst doing research in Siberia. We also spoke about the history of including northern communities in research from a Russian perspective.   Links to add to bio: https://artslink.space/ https://arcticinfrascapes.com/ https://frozencommons.unh.edu/maps/ Technical details:

• Podcast Hosts: Inge Deschepper and Nicholas Parlato
• Edition: Inge Deschepper
• Mastering: Damien Ringeisen
• Cover art by Matthew Nelson, Nicholas Parlato, and Damien Ringeisen
• Music: "Scuba" by Metre, Nul Tiel Records, UK (unaltered) CC BY-NC-SA