Keynote Speaker: Richard Seifert

Richard SeifertProfessor Emeritus, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Community Sustainability Coordinator, UAF Cooperative Extension Service

Rich Seifert has been the Cooperative Extension Service "energy guy” at UAF in Fairbanks for 28 years. He has a bachelor's degree in Physics from West Chester State University in Pennsylvania, and a master's degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Alaska. He has lived in Fairbanks for more than 40 years, save for one year (1985–86) when he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Technical University of Norway, in Trondheim, Norway.

Seifert is the author of A Solar Design Manual for Alaska, now in its fourth edition, which he uses as a text for a course to integrate solar design into homes for Alaskans. He has written numerous articles and two books on cold climate homebuilding. He teaches public seminars for adults, mainly on the topic of cold and marine climate homebuilding techniques and renewable energy use for prospective homeowners. He has written numerous technical and public information papers and pamphlets on housing issues, indoor air quality, radon, renewable energy and sustainable building design.

Recently Seifert has changed roles at the university and turned his focus toward sustainable communities and the looming prospect of peak world oil production (“Peak Oil”) and how it will affect our lives. Out of that interest, he became the Community Sustainability Coordinator for the UAF Cooperative Extension Service in July 2010. He was awarded UAF professor emeritus status in May 2011, and continues to serve as a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.