The Kōlea Institute is an independent educational consortium that includes the University of Alaska Southeast, Hawai’i Community College, University of Hawai’i Hilo, as well as local Alaska and Hawai’i stakeholder community members and schools.

Our Mission

Our mission is to deepen integration among Alaska and Hawai’i institutions, foster the training of local practitioners and the education of a new generation of rural student populations with emerging environmental geotechnologies, and advance the utility of remote sensing science to mitigate coastal environmental change.

How We Work

The Institute incorporates a community based and service learning framework that involves designing and implementing joint student and workforce training opportunities around critical mapping and inventory needs of targeted local community organizations facing local environmental and cultural resource issues.

As a Regional End User Organization, the Institute:

1. Sponsors technical community training and student-workforce development, centered on emerging geotechnologies, such as UAV-based remote sensing, visualization, and analytical approaches;

2. Employs participatory data collection to co-produce information that improves the usability and downscaling of environmental remote sensing data for coastal communities; and

3. Promotes knowledge exchange across the Pacific through case studies and conversations that explore the applicability of these technologies for community capacity-building efforts.