Seth Danielson

Ice Floes to Seals, Waves to Whales

About the Speaker

Seth Danielson is a Research Associate Professor of Oceanography at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. He received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University in 1990 and M.S. (1996) and PhD. (2012) degrees from UAF. His work leads and contributes to research programs that focus on the oceanography, ecology, and ecosystems of North Pacific and the Arctic. Danielson’s research targets the description and understanding of circulation, temperature and fresh water variations on continental shelves, and the ramifications of these parameter variations on nutrient cycling and ecosystem structure. He has participated in over 40 research cruises to undertake discipline-specific process studies and multi-disciplinary ecosystem surveys. Some studies cover just a portion of a single tidal cycle; others maintain multi-decade time series. His research follows both observational and numerical modeling approaches, contributing to numerous peer-reviewed publications that focus on the Gulf of Alaska, Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort sea continental shelves. A 2014 manuscript proposed a new conceptual framework for understanding variability of Pacific-Arctic oceanic exchanges based on the location and strength of the Aleutian Low atmospheric pressure system in the North Pacific and the strength of polar easterlies over Western Arctic continental shelves. Danielson plays the 5-string banjo in the clawhammer style and is a founding member of festival and contradance band Ice Jam, which has hosted weekly public jam sessions since 1997. With bass- and fiddle-playing daughters, Danielson performs at the summer and winter Fairbanks Folk Fest as DFB, the Danielson Family Band. They live outside of Fairbanks, Alaska in a self-designed and self-built wind and solar-powered off-grid home.