Syun-Ichi Akasofu (赤祖父 俊一, Akasofu Shun'ichi, born December 4, 1930, Saku, Nagano, Japan) [sʲɯn-itɕi̥ akasoɸɯ] is the founding director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), serving in that position from the center's establishment in 1998 until January 2007.

Akasofu was director of the Geophysical Institute from 1986 until 1999, during which time the Alaska Volcano Observatory was established and Poker Flat Research Range was modernized.

He went on to become the first director of the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) upon its establishment in 1998, and remained in that position until 2007.

In 2006, he testified to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts) that “… we have at least two firm scientific indicators that show it is incorrect to conclude that this warming in the continental Arctic is due entirely to the greenhouse effect caused by man.”[2] He instead ascribes warming to natural variation[3] and has stated that "… climate change, or temperature, has been rising.

[7] These claims were shown to be "not connected to any physical phenomenon; rather ... a result of a simplistic and incorrect curve-fitting operation".