Seaweed mariculture focus of new faculty hire at university in Alaska

The University of Alaska – Fairbanks is adding a full-time faculty member at its Kodiak, Alaska, U.S.A. campus to teach and research mariculture, according to UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences Dean Bradley Moran.

Founded in 1981 on Near Island, the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center, which houses the UAF's mariculture program, used to benefit from significant federal funding in years past, but recently has fallen into disuse and has even faced potential closure due to financial issues. Moran and the rest of the university hopes that the addition of a faculty member will ensure the center’s survival. 

“Kodiak does need more faculty,” Moran said. “There’s a lot of capacity here in terms of laboratories that are initialized, frankly. We’re trying to ensure that each of our satellite campuses, if you like, are sustainable, and Kodiak is being invested in right now in that regard.”

Alaska Research Consortium President Jay Stinson is not certain that the move will lead to the long-term survival of the center, but admits, “what it does show and demonstrate to me is the university’s commitment to the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center.”

According to Moran, the position, which will be tenured, is expected to be filled within a year, and the professor will join an existing staff of around 10 people. The center is primarily focused on research in conjunction with the state’s burgeoning seaweed production industry. In the latest sign of the sector’s growth, the company Blue Evolution, a Kodiak-based private company that cultivates and markets seaweed products, has begun hiring harvesters. The company plans to process sugar kelp procured in the area into pasta products. 

Photo courtesy of Carter Newell/University of Alaska – Fairbanks