James "Jim" Fall

Originally from New Jersey, James "Jim" Fall attended the University of Pennsylvania and earned a M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He came to Alaska in 1981 to work for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Division of Subsistence. He was a Subsistence Resource Specialist III from 1981 to 1989, Southcentral Region Program Manager from 1989 to 2007, and the Statewide Research Program Manager from 2007 until his retirement in 2021. During this tenure with the Subsistence Division, Jim authored a number of reports documenting subsistence and cultural traditions in many parts of Alaska, as well as an overview history of the Division. In addition to his Division work, Jim taught courses at the University of Alaska Anchorage, worked closely with Dena'ina elder Shem Pete and University of Alaska linguist Jim Kari, leading to Shem Pete’s Alaska, a book about the Anchorage area before it became Anchorage, and collaborated with curator Aaron Leggett and the Anchorage Museum on a ground-breaking exhibit in 2014: Dena'inaq' Huch'ulyeshi: The Dena'ina Way of Living."