On March 13-14, 2012, the Geophysical Institute co-hosted the Alaska Weather Symposium. As in 2011, there was a student poster and oral presentation competition similar to those held at other academic conferences. This year, three students from Japan participated in this competition along with University of Alaska Fairbanks students from the Department of Atmospheric Sciences (GI, IARC, CNSM), Computer Sciences, and the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

Jean Talbot won the award for Outstanding Poster. Talbot is a doctoral student in Atmospheric Sciences and her faculty mentor is Uma Bhatt. Ketsiri Leelasakultum won the award for Outstanding Oral Presentation. Leelaskultum is a doctoral student in Atmpospheric Sciences and her faculty mentor is Nicole Mölders. Also of note, Kayla Harrison placed second in Oral Presentation. She is an undergraduate student and her advisor is Don Morton of the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center.

The AWS was covered by local television news programs on Channel 11 and Channel 13.