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CICOES Director John Horne helps bring Arctic research to life at the Anchorage Museum

By Joe Selmont

An aerial view of the R/V Sikuliaq at sea, with the sun low on the horizon.
The R/V Sikuliaq, pronounced [see-KOO-lee-auk], is a 261-foot oceanographic research ship capable of bringing scientists to the ice-choked waters of Alaska and the polar regions. Sikuliaq, one of the most advanced university research vessels in the world, is able to break ice up to 2.5 feet thick. Constructed at Marinette Marine Corporation, a shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin, Sikuliaq is homeported in Seward, Alaska, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Seward Marine Center.
What does it look like to study a changing Arctic from aboard a research ship? Visitors to the Anchorage Museum can now get a glimpse.

In the museum’s new exhibition, “Arctic Marine Science: Sikuliaq to Shore,” visitors are invited into the world of the R/V Sikuliaq, the ice-capable research vessel that supports marine science in Alaska’s northern waters. Among the exhibition’s contributors is CICOES Director John Horne, who provided an example output from an EK80 Echo Sounder, showing how scientists use acoustics to observe life beneath the ocean surface.

Horne’s video appears in the exhibition’s computer lab installation, a space designed to reflect one of the ship’s busiest hubs. There, visitors can choose from eight videos displayed on the lower row of screens, while a rotating set of still images plays above. Horne’s contribution is featured as one of the selectable videos, giving museumgoers a closer look at the data-rich tools used during research at sea. The video was created with the support of University of Washington graduate student and former CICOES intern Mark Yamane.

A display at the Anchorage Museum, showing John Horne's video alongside others, as well as a diagram of the Sikuliaq in the distance.

The installation highlights how marine science technicians and researchers work together in the ship’s computer lab to monitor cameras, instruments, and scientific sensors. By contributing to the exhibit, Horne and Yamane help translate that behind-the-scenes work for the public, offering visitors a more vivid sense of how Arctic marine science happens in real time.

The broader exhibition, on view from May 15, 2026, through April 4, 2027, explores how scientists, coastal communities and Indigenous knowledge holders deepen our understanding of rapid environmental change in Arctic waters around Alaska.