Dena Seidel is an interdisciplinary social scientist who combines anthropology and science film storytelling as part of science communication, STEM learning and sustainable food systems research. She is currently a science communication and food systems researcher at Rutgers University.
Seidel is an award winning science filmmaker and the director/producer of several long form films made in trusting partnership with Rutgers scientists. Seidel’s original research is at the intersection of interdisciplinary and innovative experiential learning pedagogy, sustainable development and traditionally based food systems. Together, Seidel and Rutgers scientists designed the impactful science-in-action film storytelling model (Seidel et al 2023, Frontiers in Communication)
She is the founding director of the Rutgers Center for Digital Filmmaking. She designed the Rutgers BFA in digital filmmaking and served as the director of digital storytelling in the Rutgers English department. She currently oversees the Immersive Science Learning Through Storytelling lab housed in the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences where Seidel supports students who conduct independent research through storytelling.
Seidel has a masters degree in anthropology with years of experience learning from Pacific indigenous cultures. From 2016-2019, Seidel was the director of the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea dedicated to providing traditional based sustainable sea transportation to vulnerable Pacific island communities. Seidel also served as the foundation’s film storyteller directing more than 30 short documentaries featuring Pacific Islanders communicating their use and need for traditionally based sea transportation. Seidel is the co-director of the Okeanos feature film Starchasers for which she directed more than 40 film shoots and also wrote and co-directed the Starchasers trailer. She is currently the honorary ambassador at large for research and academic partnerships for the Pohnpei state government and a member of the Rutgers Food Systems Science Team for the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Seidel co-leads food systems research on behalf of the FSM national and state governments.
Seidel began developing her science-in-action film storytelling model in 2007 while faculty in the Rutgers English department and as part of her original filmmaking-as-creative-writing curriculum. In trusting partnership with Rutgers marine scientists, Seidel and 7 undergraduates from a variety of majors documented oceanographers navigating an autonomous underwater robot across the Atlantic for one year, capturing more than 300 hours of science-in-action film footage. The resulting feature science film, Atlantic Crossing: a Robot’s Daring Mission aired more than 400 times on PBS stations, reaching a potential audience of 180 million people. Atlantic Crossing was also featured in a Smithsonian Sant Ocean Hall exhibit for 3 years.
Seidel is one of the only university professors to produce research based feature length documentary films for national broadcast with her undergraduate students and is the first to introduce this educational concept to Rutgers. Seidel is also the only university professor to direct a feature documentary for the National Science Foundation in Antarctica which resulted in the award winning and theatrically released film Antarctic Edge: 70° South that was broadcast on Netflix from 2015-2018.
Dena with Spike Lee
Seidel has established creative and trusting partnerships with researchers across many disciplines and has also produced more than a dozen visiting filmmaker events at Rutgers University that included the participation of Spike Lee, Academy Award winner Ross Kauffman, Academy Award nominee Marshall Curry, Sam Pollard, Pamela Yates, Jenny Livingston, Fabien Cousteau, National Geographic producer Peter Schnall, and executive director of NOVA Paula Apsell. Seidel also worked closely with Professor Rich Lutz to secure the Al Giddings underwater cinematography library for Rutgers as Seidel had been Giddings’ co-producer on the two hour Discovery Channel special “Forbidden Depths.”
Prior to becoming a university professor in 2007, Seidel worked on films for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Channel 13/WNET, HBO, ABC, The Learning Channel, WGBH Boston and Turner Broadcasting. She is the recipient of a New York Emmy for Outstanding Editing and a New York Festivals Award for Best Editing. The two hour Discovery Channel special, “Carrier: Fortress at Sea,” edited by Seidel, won the 1995 Emmy for Best Documentary in the category of Outstanding Cultural Programming. Seidel was the co-producer, editor and writer of the two-hour Discovery Channel special, “Forbidden Depths.”
Seidel is a published fiction writer. Her short story “Good Times” was published in the Hudson Review Anthology Writes of Passage 2008 along with a story by Tennessee Williams. She is currently earning her PhD in higher education.