Biomedical Studies & Molecular Biology

In 2018, Sean completed a project with the Great Courses™. Entitled Life in the Worlds Oceans, this educational series—entirely authored and presented by Sean and in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution—won a Telly award in 2019.

When not obsessed with all things COA and polar, Sean is an avid photographer, luthier, woodworker and guitarist!

Before COA

Sean grew up on the outskirts of London, England, son to parents heavily involved in the music industry. Many of Sean’s first babysitters were sound engineers— whenever he accompanied his father on a gig into London. He is a graduate of Whitgift High School, where he learned to love rugby and mountaineering/rock climbing. Sean did his undergraduate degree at the University College of North Wales, where he also expanded his experience as an leader in climbing and hiking expeditionS, and where he also qualified as a Lead Dive Instructor in SCUBA under the British Sub Aqua Club.

Sean then turned to Newfoundland, Canada, for his graduate degrees at Memorial University of Newfoundland under Dr. Jon Lien, one of the most respected whale scientists in Canada. Under Jon’s mentorship Sean learned the importance of engaging all stakeholders in conservation management, and that science was not the be-all end-all way of knowing. These experiences were the perfect pre-adaptation for his career at College of the Atlantic, working as a transdisciplinary human ecologist.

Course Areas

Marine mammalogy, biology, oceanography, statistics

• Ph.D. Biopsychology, Memorial University, 1998
• M.Sc. Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland
• B.Sc. University College of North Wales, UK

Sean came to College of the Atlantic in 1998 and serves as part of the marine science faculty; he believes strongly in placing students in the field environment to provide the best possible experiential education. This includes numerous field trips on the ocean and visits to the Colleges offshore islands.

As a researcher, Sean is involved in several projects as a principal investigator. Studies include: photo-identification and biopsy of finback and humpback whales, working at sites that vary from the remote field site of Mount Desert Rock, located 25 miles offshore in the Gulf of Maine, to the Antarctic Peninsula; bioacoustic assessments of whale-shipstrike interactions; passive acoustic monitoring; and examinations of baleen whale and pinniped foraging ecology using stable isotopes. He directs Allied Whale, as well as the Marine Mammal Stranding Response Program at College of the Atlantic.

Much of Sean’s background is in the field of fishery-marine mammal interactions. He spent 10 years in Newfoundland as part of the Whale Disentanglement team, a group that releases large entangled whales from fishing gear. In Maine he is trained as part of a first response team that performs a similar function, coordinated by the Center for Coastal Studies, and regularly consults with the federal and state governments on disentanglement activities. He has worked on several projects that successfully designed alarms for fishing gear that reduce marine mammal entanglements. 

In Maine he works principally in the field of foraging ecology, using stable isotope science to understand the shifting diet of whales under the selective pressure of a rapidly changing oceanographic environment. Within Sean’s near 30-year tenure at the college, the Gulf of Maine has increased in temperature over 4°F, a massive swing within the context of biological oceanography.

Sean started work as wildlife guide in 1995, escorting groups such as BBC: Blue Planet and Scientific American Frontiers to find whales to film. Towards the end of his graduate career at Memorial he was leading trips for tourists to subpolar destinations such as southern Labrador to find wildlife. Since coming to COA, he has extended his field of operations to the Antarctic Peninsula, the Canadian High Arctic, Greenland, Norway, Svalbard, Iceland, and Alaska as well as warmer climes such as the Gulf of California and the Kimberly coastline of the Northern Territories of Australia.

He has held polar guide certification for over 25 years, and has 22 seasons-worth of experience working in the Arctic and Antarctica. He also holds a USCG Master certification for vessels up to 25 tons in nears coastal environments, as well as a Royal Yachtsman Association Power Boat II certificate, and a Wilderness First Responder certificate. He has worked for a variety of expedition tourism companies, including Abercrombie and Kent, Hapag Lloyd, Ponant and Silver Seas, but for the past 13 years has worked exclusively for Seabourn, and was part of the inaugural team that created one of the first luxury expedition products for Antarctica; he also assisted in the launch of two new purpose-built expedition vessels, MS Venture and MS Pursuit. Aboard these vessels Sean has instigated a citizen science project that encourages guests to submit images of whale tails to the catalogs that Allied Whale curates.

Many of Sean’s travels and encounters with wildlife have been recorded through his camera; photography is a hobby he has retained since his teens. As a scientist, his camera remains an essential part of his research equipment.

Sean serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for The Shaw Institute, and is a member of the board for the Ellsworth Community Music Institute. He is also a member of the Maine Coalition for the North Atlantic Right Whale

Allen, K., Petersen, M. L., George V. Sharrard, G. V., Wright, D., and Todd, S. K. 2012. Radiated noise from commercial ships in the Gulf of Maine: Implications for whale/vessel collisions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 132(3) EL229-EL235.

Bort, J., Van Parijs, S., Stevick, P., Summers, E., and Todd, S. K. 2015. North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) vocalization patterns in the central Gulf of Maine from October 2009 to October 2010. Endangered Species Research 26:271-280.

Davis, G., Baumgartner, M. F., Bonnell, J. M., Bell, J., Berchok, C., Bort-Thornton, J., Brault, S., Buchanan, G., Charif, R. A., Cholewiak, D., Clark, C., Corkeron, P., Delarue, J., Dudzinski, K., Hatch, L., Hildebrand, J. A., Hodge, L., Klinck, H., Kraus, S., Martin, B., Mellinger, D., Moors-Murphy, H., Nieukirk, S., Nowacek, D., Parks, S., Read, A., Rice, A. N., Risch, D., Sirovic, A., Soldevilla, M., Stafford, K., Stanistreet, J., Summers, E., Todd, S. K., Warde, A., and van Parijs, S. 2017. Long-term passive acoustic recordings track the changing distribution of North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) from 2004 to 2014. Nature Scientific Reports 7: 13460.

Davis, G. E., Baumgartner, M. F., Corkeron, P. J., Bell, J., Berchok, C., Bonnell, J. M., Bort Thornton, J., Brault, S., Buchanan, G. A., Cholewiak, D. M., Clark, C. W., Delarue, J., Hatch, L.T., Klinck, H., Kraus, S.D., Martin, B., Mellinger, D. K., Moors-Murphy, H., Nieukirk, S., Nowacek, D. P., Parks, S. E., Parry, D., Pegg, N., Read, A. J., Rice, A. N., Risch, D., Scott, A., Soldevilla, M. S., Stafford, K. M., Stanistreet, J. E., Summers, E., Todd, S. K., and Van Parijs, S.M. 2020. Exploring movement patterns and changing distributions of baleen whales in the western North Atlantic using a decade of passive acoustic data. Global Changes in Biology 26(9):4812–40. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15191.

Delarue, J., Todd, S. K., Van Parijs, S. M. and Di Iorio, L. 2009. Geographic variation in Northwest Atlantic fin whale songs: implications for stock structure assessment. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125(3):1774-1782.

Handel, S., Todd, S. K., and Zoidis, A. 2009. Rhythmic structure in humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) songs: Preliminary implications for song production and perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125(6): EL225-EL230.

Handel, S. K., Todd, S., Zoidis, A. 2012. Hierarchical and rhythmic organization in the songs of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Bioacoustics 21(2):141-156.

Haverkamp, H., Chang, H.Y., Newcomb, E., Doughty, L., Walk, D., Seton, R., Jones, L., Todd, S., and Cammen, K. (in press). A retrospective socio-ecological analysis of seal strandings in the Gulf of Maine. Marine Mammal Science 1– 19. https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.12975

Hill, A. N., Karniski, C., Robbins, J., Pitchford, T., Todd, S. K., and Asmutis-Silvia, R. 2017. Vessel collision injuries on live humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, in the southern Gulf of Maine. Marine Mammal Science 33(2):1748-7692.​

Jones, L. S., Stephenson, T. A., Zoidis, A. M., & Todd, S. K. 2022. Drone Observations of a Mother–Calf Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Pair Synchronous Feeding in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. Aquatic Mammals, 48(6), 716-719.

Lien, J., Barney, W., Todd, S. K., Seton, R., and Guzzwell, J. 1992. The effects of adding sounds to codtraps on the probability of collisions by humpback whales. In Marine Mammal Sensory Systems. Edited by Thomas, J.A., Kastelein, R.A., and Supin, A.Y. Plenum Press, New York. pp. 701-708. Invited chapter.

Lien, J., Todd, S. K., and Guigné, J.Y. 1991. Inferences about perception in large cetaceans, especially humpback whales, from incidental catches in fixed fishing gear, enhancement of nets by “alarm” devices, and the acoustics of fishing gear. In Sensory Abilities in Cetaceans; Laboratory and Field Evidence. Edited by Thomas, J., and Kastelein, R. Plenum, New York. pp. 347-362. Invited chapter.

Lubansky, T., Jones, L., Stephenson, T., Taylor, J., Todd, S. K., and Mashintonio, A. In press. Long-term opportunistic sightings reveal shifting optimal habitat locations for humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Gulf of Maine. Marine Mammal Science.

Maloney, M., Todd, S. K. Dendanto, D. and Davis, M. M. 2025. First Documentation of Predation on a Porbeagle Shark (Lamna nasus) by a Gray Seal (Halichoerus grypus). Northeast Naturalist 32(2): N5-N11.

McCordic, J. A., Todd, S. K., and Stevick, P. T. 2013. Differential rates of killer whale attacks on humpback whales in the North Atlantic as determined by scarification. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 94(5): 1311-1315.

Mullen, K. A., Petersen, M. L., and Todd, S. K. 2013. Has designating and protecting critical habitat had an impact on endangered North Atlantic right whale ship strike mortality? Journal of Marine Policy 42:293-304.

Napoli, C., Hirtle, N., Stepanuk, J., Christiansen, F., Heywood, E., Grove, T., Stoller, A., Dodds, F., Glarou, M., Rasmussen, M., Lonati, G., Davies, K., Videsen, S., Simon, M., Boye, T., Zoidis, A., Todd, S. and L. Thorne. (in press). Drone-based photogrammetry reveals differences in humpback whale body condition and mass across North Atlantic foraging grounds. Frontiers in Marine Science.

Newcomb, E., Walk, D., Haverkamp, H., Doughty, L., Todd, S. K., Seton, R., Jones, L., and Cammen, K. 2021. Breaking down “harassment” to characterize trends in human interaction cases in Maine’s pinnipeds. Conservation Science and Practice 3(11):1-13.

Todd, S., Allen, K., Mahaffey, C., Damon, J., Peterson, M., Hamilton, P. and Kenney, R. 2009. An acoustic mysticete shipstrike mortality risk assessment for the Gulf of Maine. Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics 2009.

Todd, S., Lien, J., and Verhulst, A. 1992. Orientation of humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) and minke (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) whales to acoustic alarm devices designed to reduce entrapment in fishing gear. In Marine Mammal Sensory Systems. Edited by Thomas, J.A., Kastelein, R.A., and Supin, A.Y. Plenum Press, New York. pp. 727-739. Invited chapter.

Todd, S. K., Ostrom, P., Lien, J., and Abrajano, J. 1997. Use of biopsy samples of humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) skin for stable isotope (d¹³C) determination. Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Science 22:71-76.

Todd, S., and Nelson, D.L. 1994. A review of modifications to the webbing and setting strategies of passive fishing gear to reduce incidental by-catch of cetaceans. In Annex F of Gillnets and Cetaceans. IWC Spec. Pub. 15. Edited by Donovan, G., Perrin, W.F., and Barlow, J. IWC, Cambridge. pp. 67-69.

Todd, S., Robbins, J., Weinrich, M.T., Pastor, N., Dendanto, D., Palsbøll, P. and A.M. Zoidis (2025). Examination of Isotopic Signals to Determine Trophic Dynamics and Diet of Gulf of Maine Mysticetes prior to an Oceanographic Regime Shift. Aquatic Mammals 51(1).

Todd, S., Rosen, D.A.S., Tollit, D. and Holm, B. 2010. Stable isotope signal homogeneity and differences between and within pinniped muscle and skin. Marine Mammal Science 26(1):176-185.

Todd, S., Stevick, P., Lien, J., Marques, F., and Ketten, D. 1996. Behavioural effects of exposure to underwater explosions in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Canadian Journal of Zoology 74:1661-1672.