C&EN talks with Loreto Paulino, chemist and Arctic explorer

In the summer of 2023, on the heels of graduating from the University of Guam with his bachelor's in chemistry, Loreto Paulino Jr. set up camp in Alaska. He was there as part of the Polaris Project, which brings young scientists on climate change–related research expeditions in the Arctic. He and other project participants were temporarily stationed in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a vast tundra on the Bering Sea. This remote site lacks roads, so the crew assembled in the town of Bethel, Alaska, and traveled the 95 km to base camp by float plane. For the next 2 weeks, Paulino lived in a tent and made the daily trek to and from his study site—though he occasionally got a lift in a helicopter. Before the expedition embarked, program director Susan Natali mentioned that none of the Polaris Project students had studied beavers. Paulino jumped at the chance. Beavers have long