Rate My Professor Ken Dunton

Current projects encompass Arctic investigations of watershed-shelf linkages in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, benthic community structure and trophic energetics in the Chukchi Sea, and biology of isolated Arctic kelp communities; in the Gulf of Mexico, a statewide Texas seagrass monitoring program, indicators of seagrass condition based on plant and water quality indices, and impacts of drought and freshwater inflows on subtropical estuarine marsh and mangrove production. As Project Leader for the NSF-funded Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER (2023-2028), he directs interdisciplinary land-ocean studies. Dunton has mentored 31 graduate students (10 Ph.D., 21 M.S.) across Gulf of Mexico, Norway, Arctic, and Antarctic regions and leads outreach initiatives including the Scientist in Residence program and Kaktovik Oceanography Program for native Inupiat youth. His accolades include the 2016 Ramón Margalef Award for Excellence in Education from ASLO, 2015 President’s Award for Conservation and Environmental Stewardship from the Coastal Bend Bays Foundation, multiple UT Austin Teaching Excellence and Outreach Awards (2000, 2003, 2005, 2012), 2013 Director’s Excellence Award from USF&WS Alaska Region 7, and U.S. Antarctic Service Medals (1990, 1999). With over 100 peer-reviewed publications, key works include "Sclerochronological records of environmental variability and bivalve growth in the Pacific Arctic" (Progress in Oceanography, in press), "Marine Pelagic Ecosystem Responses to Climate Variability and Change" (Bioscience, in press), and "Kelp carbon sink potential decreases with warming due to accelerating decomposition" (PLOS Biology, 2022). He has contributed to books such as "Biology of Polar Benthic Algae" (2011) and served as guest editor for Deep-Sea Research Part II.