As an anthropology major in college and graduate school, Dr. Robert Wheelersburg was required to pick a region of the world that interested him. He decided against the most common regions and chose the Arctic. Despite this choice, ending up in Iceland was a matter of chance.

“Most people in the program worked in Alaska and I didn’t want to do that. Russia at the time was closed, so I thought I’ll try Europe,” Wheelersburg said.

Wheelersburg attended Brown University for graduate school, where they taught Swedish. Because of this, he did a large part of his research in Sweden. He ended up in Iceland because of his work with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) while he was in the army reserves.

He called Iceland “geographically complex” and explained that the language spoken is similar to that spoken during the time of the Vikings. The capital, Reykjavik, where Wheelersburg will spend his next four months, houses about half of the country’s population.

The location and environment has created a country that is largely different from those around it. It is not frequently discussed in academics, outside of those studying it specifically. Wheelersburg plans to bring his experiences in Iceland back to the classroom to share with his students.

“The time in Iceland will help because as an anthropologist, I believe that to learn and teach about a foreign culture you must spend time in that culture,” Wheelersburg said.

He also plans to take a class to Iceland over spring break, so students can gain hands-on experience in travel and ethnography writing. In the past, he has taken three freshmen seminar classes to Iceland to do similar work.

The anthropology professor is currently on his third Fulbright appointment, though this is the first at the University of Iceland. This trip marks a number of “firsts” in his career and in history, as it is also the first Fulbright research to be supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This and other organizations have been working to increase the number of scholars studying Artic sustainability.

He said the goal of research in artic sustainability is to protect the area from exploitation by any one group. Research into sustainability also includes areas such as fishing, tourism and mining, in hopes that all of these resources are used in the best ways to support the most people.

“The projection is that in 50 years, the ice cap will melt and it will expose the undersea to exploration for oil and natural gas,” Wheelersburg said.

During his semester at the Center for Arctic Policy Studies, he is also helping to develop and teach in their new Master’s program in West Nordic Studies. He is currently teaching a course called “Arctic Dynamics,” which looks into the power relations between Arctic people and states that don’t hold Arctic territories. By only teaching one course, Wheelersburg is given more time to do his own research during his stay.

Wheelersburg has traveled to the Arctic many times a year for the past thirty years. On his two previous Fulbrights, he conducted research in Sweden. On his first trip, he lived with a reindeer herding tribe for his doctoral research. There, he attempted to participate in the group, as an adult male of his age would have.

“How did it go? Not very well. I hadn’t grown up learning to ski, so I tried to learn to cross-country ski when I was there,” Wheelersburg said. “Unfortunately, I did the Olympic style with very thin skis and two ruts that you ski in, but, they are out in the middle of nowhere. They have these very wide and very long skis that they use. So, it was pretty tough to do that.”

On his second Fulbright, he helped to develop a doctoral program in Saami studies. He said the goal of this is to have students with hands-on knowledge of the minority groups that are being studied to be responsible for research. Three of the students he taught are now Saami studies professors in various parts of Scandinavia.

“To me, it’s important to do research for scholarship because it is what makes us higher education instructors,” Wheelersburg said.