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2024 Steinbach Visiting Scholars

Dr. Kerri Seger

Applied Ocean Sciences

Applied Ocean Science and Engineering
June 25th-27th

Dr. Seger is a bioacoustician, working at the intersection of acoustics, instrumentation, biology, and ecology. Her research focuses on marine mammal acoustics, and previous projects include establishing a passive acoustic monitoring station off the Pacific coast of Columbia while she was teaching at the Universidad Pontificia Javeriana as a Fulbright Scholar.

Scheduled Talks

  • June 25th : Department-wide seminar, 1:00pm in Smith Conference Room
    Recording Full Ship Shock Trials of an aircraft carrier: using the parabolic equation to plan, assess, and test BACI hypotheses
  • June 26th: Institution-wide seminar, 2:00pm in Redfield Auditorium
    The Gulf of Tribuga: how soundscapes and BACI projects for student theses support Colombia’s conservation goals and international collaboration
  • June 26th: Networking Barbecue, 3:00pm Redfield Lower Lawn
  • June 27th: Informal Q&A for students at 12:00pm in Clark 509
    The science trifecta of today: research, teaching, and media

Dr. Kelly Benoit-Bird

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Biology
July 18th-19th

Kelly Benoit-Bird is a Senior Scientist and the Research Chair at MBARI, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. In her research, she uses sound to explore how animals make their living in pelagic marine ecosystems from the surface to the deep sea, resulting in more than 80 peer-reviewed articles on animals ranging from copepods to blue whales. She collaborates extensively with science communicators to share her work with diverse audiences, resulting in features at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the American Museum of Natural History. Kelly received a B.S. in Aquatic Ecology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa before a short stint as a post-doctoral fellow at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. Dr. Benoit-Bird was a Professor of Oceanography at Oregon State University before moving to MBARI in 2016 with her husband and research partner and their most important collaboration, their school-aged son. She is a recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Medwin Prize in Acoustical Oceanography, a Kavli Frontiers Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences, and a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly known as 'the Genius Award'). She is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and is currently serving as an elected board member for the Society.

Scheduled Talks

  • July 18th: Department-wide seminar, 12:00pm in Redfield Auditorium
    Resolving the Food Paradox in the Sea
  • July 18th: Networking Barbecue, 1:00pm Redfield Lower Lawn
  • July 19th:  Institution-wide seminar, 10:00am in Clark 507
    Diel Vertical Migration Affects the Health of the Planet (and the new tools that are helping us measure how much)
  • July 19th: Informal Q&A for students, 11:00am in Clark 507

Dr. Dan Amrhein

NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
Physical Oceanography
August 7th- August 9th

Dan Amrhein is a Scientist II at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. After graduating from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Physical Oceanography, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Oceanography and Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington before joining the staff at NCAR. His research interests include data assimilation and machine learning, physical oceanography and climate on global and regional scales, paleoclimatology, and other gnarly problems where it's fun to combine models, observations, and theory.

Scheduled Talks

  • August 7th: Institution-wide seminar, 3:00pm Redfield Auditorium
    The oceans through a crystal ball: Frontiers in Earth System predictability in the presence of incomplete observations and flawed model
  • August 8th: Department-wide seminar, 3pm in Clark 201
    How does the atmosphere drive the ocean? Identifying mechanisms and origins of stochastic ocean variability in the North Atlantic
  • August 9th: Informal Q&A and lunch for students, 12:00pm in Carriage House