Maria Ackrén Appointed Director of the Stefansson Arctic Institute at the University of Akureyri

The University of Akureyri has appointed Professor Maria Helena Ackrén as the new Director of the The Stefansson Arctic Institute (SAI) at the University of Akureyri. Dr. Níels Einarsson was Director of the Stefansson Arctic Institute since its establishment in 1998. Following the institute´s merger with the university in 2025, Tom Barry, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Akureyri, has served as Acting Director.

Maria says she is excited to join the University of Akureyri community and return to familiar academic surroundings: “I am looking forward to meeting old and new colleagues and working with a research institute focused on Arctic research. I hope to bring new perspectives and ideas and be able to build up a leading institute within Arctic research.”

Maria joins the University of Akureyri with an extensive academic and leadership background in Arctic politics, island autonomy, and governance. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Åbo Akademi University (2009) and has in recent years served as Professor of Political Science at Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland, with a special focus on island autonomy. Her extensive career includes roles as Head of Department, Head of Research, Lecturer, and Visiting Scholar at universities across the Nordic region, Europe, and North America. She has supervised numerous PhD, MA, and BA students, contributed to major international research networks, and published widely on governance, autonomy, Arctic affairs and comparative politics.

Maria will formally take up her new position 1st of May this year.

Looking ahead, she sees strong potential in the Institute’s next steps and future collaborations: “I hope we can cooperate with other similar institutions and universities, but also with the whole University as a platform to build up the new generations of researchers. The focus should be on various interdisciplinary projects, where we also cooperate closely with the local community and relevant partners.”

As we welcome Maria to the University of Akureyri community, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to Tom Barry for his dedicated service and leadership for the Institute over the past year.