Sean C. Anderson

Sean C. Anderson

Research Scientist

Sean C. Anderson is a Research Scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada working on spatiotemporal species distribution models, population modelling, and fisheries stock assessment.

Research

I’m a Research Scientist at the Pacific Biological Station with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Much of my work involves developing spatial and spatiotemporal statistical models and applying them to problems in fisheries stock assessment, species distribution modelling, and population ecology.

Software

I develop open-source R packages for statistical modelling and reproducible science:

  • sdmTMB — fast, flexible spatial and spatiotemporal models for species distributions and other ecological data; used by fisheries agencies including NOAA, DFO, and ICES

  • bayesdfa — Bayesian dynamic factor analysis for finding shared trends across many time series

  • csasdown — reproducible data-to-document workflows for Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat reports

Reports

I maintain two annual reports on groundfish in British Columbia:

Working with me

I can co-supervise graduate students and postdocs through the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. I can also host postdocs at DFO, funded by external fellowships or internal DFO funding.

Reach out if you’d like to collaborate on something of shared interest.

I occasionally teach workshops on spatiotemporal modelling with sdmTMB, applied Bayesian modelling with Stan, advanced R, GLMMs, and RTMB/TMB. Get in touch if you’re interested in hosting one.


Outside of work, I enjoy sea kayaking, woodworking, and photography.