This Quarter at Trebek
Issue #5
| September 15, 2025
TREBEK CAPTURES
CARBON
IN THIS ISSUE:
This issue showcases Trebek projects documenting change beneath the waves and why restoring our oceans is vital for climate resilience.
TREBEK CAPTURES CARBON: Nicolas Winkler brings vanishing seagrass meadows into focus. Brian Timmer documents the collapse and resilience of kelp forests to guide restoration. Nicole Holman reveals deep-sea coral and sponge habitats, showing how protecting biodiversity in the ocean’s depths also safeguards systems that store carbon.
SCALING AI FOR OCEAN OVERSIGHT: 2023 Grantee Alexander Dungate is turning his pilot project into a fast-growing startup fishing. OnDeck AI utilizes artificial intelligence to automate video review on fishing vessels, enabling fisheries to monitor catch data more accurately. With new funding secured, the platform is expanding.
ILLUMINATING ISSUES THROUGH FILM: Since 2021, 13 Trebek projects have featured a film or documentary at their core, with 4 already completed and reaching audiences in new ways. From award-nominated and nationally broadcast stories to community screenings, these films blend science with storytelling to spark dialogue and inspire action.
TREBEK CAPTURES CARBON
Three Trebek Grantees Working to Restore Balance Beneath the Waves
Across Canada, marine habitats that help regulate the climate are in decline. Beneath the surface, eelgrass meadows are receding, kelp forests have been eroded over decades, and deep-sea ecosystems remain vulnerable and largely unseen.
These Trebek-supported projects bring those hidden places into view. By documenting change in coastal meadows, tracing the loss of kelp, and exploring fragile habitats of the deep, they highlight why protecting and restoring ocean ecosystems is essential for climate resilience and the health of our coastal waters.
Nicolas Winkler
Nicolas Winkler - Hidden In The Grass: A Year In Atlantic Canada's Eelgrass Ecosystems
Seagrass meadows are among the planet’s most effective natural carbon sinks, storing carbon at a rate faster than tropical rainforests. But across Atlantic Canada, they are vanishing, stressed by warming waters, coastal development, and pollution.
Over the past year, Nicolas Winkler has documented these hidden ecosystems through film and photography while working with scientists and the Community Eelgrass Restoration Initiative (CERI) to track their decline. His project highlights the vital role eelgrass plays in carbon storage, biodiversity, and climate resilience, bringing new attention to one of Canada’s most overlooked habitats. Learn about East coast eelgrass restoration: CERI.
Watch the team: dive under the ice to glimpse these habitats in winter.
2023 Trebek Grantee
Brian Timmer - Exploring 50 years of change to critical nearshore habitat in the Salish Sea
Kelp forests absorb carbon, shelter marine life, and shape the productivity of coastal ecosystems. Yet in the Salish Sea, these underwater forests have undergone dramatic decline over the past half-century.
Through underwater photography and historical research, Brian Timmer compared present-day kelp beds with survey records from 50 years ago. His findings are helping guide the Kelp Rescue Initiative, Canada’s first large-scale kelp restoration program, and raising awareness of kelp forests as a vital part of ocean health and climate resilience.
Learn about Canada’s first large-scale kelp restoration effort: Kelp Rescue Initiative.
Nicole Holman - Deep-sea Guardians: Protecting Our Planet's Last Frontier
In the deep ocean, coral and sponge ecosystems act as long-term carbon stores while providing habitat for an extraordinary range of species. These ecosystems are slow-growing, highly vulnerable, and remain among the least explored on Earth.
Nicole Holman is documenting these deep-sea environments as part of Canada’s largest offshore expedition. Partnering with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, she is using film and photography to reveal their biodiversity, shed light on their role in global ocean processes, and raise awareness of the pressures they face from climate change and industrial activity.
2025 Trebek Grantee
Nicole Holman
Brian Timmer
2023 Trebek Grantee
SCALING AI FOR SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES MONITORING
Alexander Dungate expands his Trebek-supported pilot into a national startup, transforming how we monitor fisheries.
Accurate data is critical for sustainable fisheries, yet reviewing vessel footage is slow, costly, and inconsistent. That gap became the challenge that sparked OnDeck AI.
With support from the Trebek Initiative, Alexander Dungate launched a pilot using AI to automate the review of fisheries videos. The system identified catch and bycatch more quickly and consistently, offering a scalable solution for both Indigenous and commercial fishing.
“Fisheries are data-starved. OnDeck helps fill that gap, empowering better decisions for sustainable fishing from local harvesters to national regulators.”
That success led to the creation of OnDeck AI, a youth-led startup building real-time monitoring tools for sustainable ocean management.
In 2025, OnDeck was accepted into Y Combinator, gaining new investment and momentum alongside support from Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. The company launched publicly with the promise to “analyze video without training a model” and has since expanded from fisheries into robotics, port security, and offshore monitoring. The platform is already helping Indigenous partners strengthen data sovereignty, while its AI enables faster and smarter video review by recognizing species and behaviours in real-world conditions.
The Trebek Initiative is proud to have backed the project’s early work. With strong partners, global recognition, and momentum from leading accelerators, OnDeck AI is shaping a more sustainable future for fisheries and advancing the role of AI in video analysis.
ILLUMINATING ISSUES THROUGH FILM
Film is one of the most powerful ways to bring discoveries to life, transforming complex research into stories that resonate with Canadians and inspire change. Among the dozens of Trebek-supported projects, thirteen involve films, and here are four already reaching audiences.
Yvonne Drebert’s All Too Clear uses underwater drones to reveal how invasive mussels are transforming the Great Lakes at an unprecedented scale. It is the most ambitious underwater film ever made about the region. The project aired on TVO and earned two Canadian Screen Award nominations. Watch All to Clear
Jessica Houston’s Beyond Her Horizons premiered at Ocean Week Ottawa and was featured in Canadian Geographic. Sailing through the Northwest Passage, Houston joins an all-female crew reframing Arctic exploration. The film amplifies women’s voices in a space long dominated by conquest narratives. Watch Beyond Her Horizons
Kateri Monticone’s Corridors: les voies de la nature follows efforts to reconnect fragmented habitats across the Northeast with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. It aired on Savoir média in Quebec, showing how collaboration creates lifelines for species and communities adapting to change. Watch Corridors: les voies de la nature
Kaitlyn Van De Woestyne’s Inuusivut Sapirnaqtuq tells a story of climate change and resilience in Tuktoyaktuk, where erosion threatens land and culture. It has screened locally and is now being shared with broadcasters and festivals to reach a wider audience. Watch Inuusivut Sapirnaqtuq
UPCOMING EVENTS
Don’t miss the chance to engage directly with National Geographic through a series of exciting events across Canada, offering unique opportunities to connect with explorers and discover the impactful work being done.
October 15, 2025 | Vancouver, BC
NG Live – Nalini Nadkarni: From Roots to Canopy
Explore the hidden world of forest canopies with ecologist Nalini Nadkarni.
Through years of climbing into treetops across the globe, Nadkarni reveals how these overlooked ecosystems influence everything from biodiversity to climate regulation—and what they teach us about resilience.
November 23-25, 2025 -Toronto, ON
NG Live - Jaime Rojo: Chasing Monarchs
Join National Geographic Explorer and photographer Jaime Rojo as he reveals the extraordinary story of monarch butterfly migration. Through powerful visuals and firsthand reporting, Rojo shares the challenges these iconic pollinators face and the work done by communities, scientists, and citizen stewards to protect them across North America.
Follow us on Instagram @trebekinitiative
THANK YOU
Your commitment fuels our Trebek Grantees’ efforts to make a meaningful impact across Canada, whether they’re uncovering solutions to urgent challenges, preserving cultural heritage, or inspiring the next generation of scientists, storytellers, and educators.
Together, we’re igniting a passion to preserve across Canada.
