Dr. David J. Nordlander is a historian who specializes in the history of the North Pacific and Western Arctic regions, encompassing Siberia and Alaska as well as neighboring parts of Asia and North America. He has conducted extensive research in the Soviet archives in both Moscow and Magadan, where he was the first foreign scholar to study in multiple local Gulag archives. Dr. Nordlander has numerous scholarly publications based on his Magadan archival research and is working on a book monograph. He worked as a historian with the Library of Congress on a Web project begun by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), "Meeting of Frontiers," which has aimed to place rare materials on the web relating to the history and native cultures of Alaska and Siberia. He continued to work on this in conjunction with the larger World Digital Library (WDL) project at the Library of Congress.
He has also spearheaded an effort to create a new Alaska History National Digital Project with the Alaska Library Network to scan primary source materials about Alaska across the Lower 48 of the United States, created the framework for a parallel effort for pan-Arctic library, archival, and museum collections, and begun work on an interactive Russian-American Heritage Trail that traces the history of the Russian colonial presence in Alaska from sites in Finland, Estonia, Russia, Alaska, and California. He has presented papers at a variety of national and international conferences. He has also worked as a historian and long-term consultant for Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska.
