In a post on the UAF Center for Cross-Cultural Studies’ Facebook page, College of Liberal Arts associate dean Anita Hartmann expressed her condolences for Knutson’s death.
"It is with great sadness that I inform you of the death of Adrina Knutson, a student many of you knew and worked with,” Hartmann wrote. “Adrina was in Tanzania with UAF faculty member Len Kamerling doing fieldwork for San Francisco State University's Maasai Migrants Film Project when she and other members of the team were in an auto accident."
UAF spokesperson Marmian Grimes says several other film crew members were injured in the wreck including Kamerling, who suffered minor injuries. She described Knutson as a senior film major with a lot to look forward to.
“She was an Alaska student, from what I understand, she had a great deal of promise,” Grimes said. “She was actually in Tanzania in part because she earned a grant from our undergraduate research office to do the work she was doing there. In addition, I believe she was involved in the filming of ‘alaskaLand,’ which was filmed here in Fairbanks.”
Channel 2’s Reba Lean and Kortnie Horazdovsky contributed to this story.
