Dylan Seidler has long had a passion for marine conservation. As a history-environmental studies major at Whitman College, much of Dylan’s honors thesis, Cultural Staples in Crisis: A Historical Analysis of Southern Resident Orcas and Chinook Salmon, emphasized the value of examining Indigenous history and cultural attitudes alongside colonial perspectives to develop successful collaborative partnerships to aid in the recovery of endangered southern resident orcas and Chinook salmon.

While a Master of Marine Management candidate at Dalhousie University she worked as an intern for the Sustainable Nunatsiavut Futures Project.This project is a collaborative initiative focused on addressing the impacts of climate change on local communities by partnering with community members to share knowledge about effective ways to monitor, and manage, Arctic marine ecosystems. Dylan’s masters project, Marine Based Research in a Changing Climate: Lessons and Methods for Community Engagement in Nunatsiavut focused on gathering perspectives on community engagement process to explore how research conducted in the region can best support Inuit community goals.

As a PhD student in the Dalhousie’s Biology department, Dylan is continuing her work with the Sustainable Nunatsiavut Futures Project. Her current research focuses on partnering with the Torngat Wildlife, Plants and Fish Secretariat and Torngat Fish Producers Co-Operative to combine different types of data and information sources on Arctic char numbers in Nunatsiavut. In addition, Dylan will be working to develop a model based on sonar data to predict future abundance of Arctic char in the region. The goal is to develop a holistic picture of population trends to support Inuit management of the char fishery and food security. Broadly, Dylan’s research interests include endangered species survival protection, marine mammal and salmonid conservation, mitigating climate change/environmental impacts and relationships with Indigenous communities and small-scale fisheries.