Cons Sci Seminar - 10/30/26

October 30, 2026

12:00-1:00pm

In person (preferred): 335 Borlaug Hall, St. Paul Campus

Remote: https://umn.zoom.us/j/91715591077

The Ghosts of Beavers Past

Dr. Emily Fairfax

Associate Professor, UMN Department of Geography, Environment, and Society

Abstract

It’s almost time for Halloween! Come and listen to a *spooky science story* of the ghosts of beavers past. Beavers engineered the North American continent for millions of years, building novel ecosystems and maintaining them with intentionality. But during the fur trade, we killed almost every single beaver. Our landscapes lost their engineers, beaver dams broke apart, rivers reshaped, and wetlands drained - all at the continental scale. What else was lost when we lost beavers? And what landscape legacies persist from the countless generations of beavers prior? How can we understand beavers and beaver-engineered places of the past to inform the restoration of rivers in the future? The good news is that we can finally begin answering some of those questions - not with a Ouija board, but with geospatial modeling, ancient DNA, and other modern scientific techniques.

Biosketch

Emily Fairfax is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota and an affiliate faculty member at the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory. Dr. Fairfax double majored in Chemistry and Physics as an undergraduate at Carleton College, then went on to earn a PhD in Geological Sciences with an emphasis in Hydrologic Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder. She uses a combination of remote sensing, modeling, and field work to understand how beaver ecosystem engineering can create drought and fire-resistant patches in the landscape under a changing climate. Her research has been featured internationally in National Geographic, the New York Times, the LA Times, PBS, NPR, BBC, and others. She was also the Science Consultant for Pixar's 2026 movie: Hoppers. When Dr. Fairfax says she can talk about beavers all day, she’s not kidding.