Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is pleased to announce Alirez Kisejel and Charles Amidon as the 2026 recipients of a $20,000 Roy Hyndman Ocean Observing Award.
The award supports graduate students in advancing research using ONC ocean observing data and/or technology, as they collaborate with leading ocean technology experts.
The award is named in honour of the late Dr. Roy Hyndman, a respected scientist and long-time supporter of ONC’s NEPTUNE observatory who served as Chair of the Ocean Observatory Council for more than six years. Hyndman was a strong advocate for supporting students and faculty who use ONC infrastructure in their research programs.
Enhancing earthquake monitoring offshore British Columbia using cabled seafloor sensors
Alireza Niksejel on the southern shore of Nova Scotia during the deployment of seismometers in 2021.
Research by Dalhousie University PhD candidate, Alireza Niksejel is improving earthquake monitoring at the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, an active underwater volcanic and tectonic region located offshore British Columbia.
Niksejel is developing a comprehensive earthquake catalogue using several years of time-series data from ONC’s cabled ocean-bottom seismometers, powered by NEPTUNE observatory and accessible through ONC’s portal, Oceans 3.0. He is also incorporating data from autonomous ocean-bottom seismometers deployed in 2024, which are not yet publicly available.
The region has been experiencing an unusually high rate of earthquake activity since 2018, with further increases detected in 2024 and 2025. His work also explores the use of deep learning methods to detect smaller earthquakes that may be missed by traditional approaches, improving our ability to track how seismic activity changes over time within the ridge system.
Improving ocean oxygen measurements using Argo floats in the Northeast Pacific
Hayden Amidon in Alaska working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a survey technician.
University of Victoria PhD student Hayden Amidon is working to improve the accuracy of oxygen measurements collected by ONC and Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s BioGeoChemical (BGC) Argo floats, and to better understand how ocean oxygen dynamics respond to marine heatwaves.
These "droids of the deep" travel up and down the water column, using optical oxygen sensors (optodes) to measure dissolved oxygen alongside other key oceanographic variables throughout the northeast Pacific. As the floats remain at sea for years, their oxygen sensors can gradually drift, causing measurements to become slightly higher or lower than the true oxygen concentration over time.
To correct for this, researchers calibrate the sensors using atmospheric oxygen measurements collected when the floats surface. However, seawater splashing onto the sensors can contaminate these reference measurements.
Amidon is refining the methods used to identify and remove these contaminated measurements, improving the accuracy and reliability of the oxygen data. He will then use these enhanced datasets to estimate Net Community Production (NCP)—a key measurement of how much carbon is transferred from the ocean surface to the deep.
Using nearly two decades of Argo observations in the northeast Pacific, his research will explore how NCP varies across time and space, and how it is influenced by major marine heatwave events that have impacted marine ecosystems over the past 20 years.
