Appointments, Teaching, and Administrative Roles
Associate Professor of Resource Policy and Management, joint appointment in the Department of Resources Management in the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Science and Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Co-Director, Resilience and Adaptation Graduate Program, an NSF IGERT
Courses: Adaptive Management, Resilience Graduate Seminar I and Resilience Graduate Seminar II, Resilience Internship.
Affiliate Faculty at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage. (2005-present)
Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, University of British Columbia (1999-present).

Educational Background
Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Studies in Resource Management Science), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada (1998). Dissertation: “The Cost of Power Sharing: Community Involvement in Canadian Porcupine Caribou Co-Management.” Areas of concentrated study: Cultural Ecology, Common Property Theory, Institutional Analysis.
M.S.T. (Environmental Studies), Antioch/New England Graduate School, Keene, NH. (1978)
B.A. (Philosophy), University of North Carolina Greensboro, with graduate coursework in field botany. Greensboro, NC (1975)

Research interest
My research investigates the sustainability of local communities and formal and informal institutions for management of common pool resources. Much of my work has focused on subsistence-based indigenous communities and processes of social-ecological change that affect local culture. The role of local communities in resource management, including how communities self manage resources and engage in co-management with external agents, is of special interest. My current projects are examining adaptive resource governance to understand if and how resource systems can promote resilience, social learning, and innovation. The use of local knowledge in integrated assessments, simulation modeling, and ecological monitoring continues to be part of my research. Much of this work has centered on indigenous people who hunt caribou and their changing relationship with caribou resources.

Representative Publications
Kofinas, Gary, (2005) "Hunters and Researchers at the Co-management Interface: Emergent Dilemmas and the Problem of Legitimacy” in Anthropologica, Vol. 47 No 2: 179-196, Special issue Co-Management and Indigenous Communities.

Philippa McNeil, Don Russell, Brad Griffith, Anne Gunn, Gary P Kofinas (2005) "Where the wild things are: Seasonal Variation in Caribou Distribution in Relation to Climate Change" in Rangifer, Special Issue No 16. p 51-63

Berman, Matt, and Gary Kofinas (2004) "Hunting for Models: Rational Choice and Grounded Approaches to Analyzing Climate Effects on Subsistence Hunting in an Arctic Community" Ecological Economics Vol. 49: 31-46.

Larry Hinzman, Neil Bettez, F. Stuart Chapin, Mark Dyurgerov, Chris Fastie, Brad Griffith, Robert D. Hollister, Allen Hope, Henry P. Huntington, Anne Jensen, Douglas Kane, David R. Klein, Gary P. Kofinas, Amanda Lynch, Andrea Lloyd, A. David McGuire, Frederick Nelson, Walter C. Oechel, Thomas Osterkamp, Charles Racine, Vladimir Romanovsky, Doug Stow, Matthew Sturm, Craig E. Tweedie, George Vourlitis, Marilyn Walker, Donald Walker, Patrick J. Webber, Jeff Welker, Kevin Winker, Kenji Yoshikawa. (2005) “Evidence and Implications of Recent Climate Change in Terrestrial Regions of the Arctic,” in Climate Change, Vol. 72 No 3: 251-298

Berman, M., Nicolson, C., Kofinas, G., Tetlichi, J., and Martin, S. (2004) “Adaptation and Sustainability in a Small Arctic Community: Results of an Agent-Based Simulation Model.” Arctic Vol. 57 No 4: 401–414.

Kofinas, G., P. Lyver, D. Russell, R. White and A. Nelson. (2003) "Towards a Protocol for Community Monitoring of Caribou Body Condition." Rangifer. Special Issue Vol 14 No 7: 43-52.

Nicolson, Craig R., Anthony M. Starfield, Gary P. Kofinas and John A. Kruse., (2002) Ten Heuristics For Interdisciplinary Modeling Projects," Ecosystems, Vol 5. 376-384.