Erich Seamon is a quantitative climatologist and spatiotemporal modeler, who has an appointment as an Assistant Professor at the University of Idaho’s Department of Design and Environments. Dr. Seamon has a M.S. in Geosciences from Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Idaho, with research focusing on statistical modeling techniques to explore natural system spatiotemporal relationships that intersect with topical areas such as: agricultural insurance and associations with climate, social determinants of health and COVID-19, and machine learning applications to human development. He is published in a number of journals, including PloS One, Environmental Science, and BMC Public Health. He additionally integrates his research with differing spatiotemporal visualization methods, including mixed and augmented reality.
An additional aspect of Dr. Seamon’s research focuses on scientific reproducibility and its’ applications to data intensive, collaborative team environments. In that context, he has worked on several multi-year research team collaborations, including: the University of Idaho’s USDA-funded Regional Approaches to Climate Change for Pacific Northwest Agriculture (REACCHPNA – http://www.reacchpna.org), as well as Oregon State University’s Climate Impacts Research Consortium (http://pnwcirc.org), a NOAA-funded Pacific Northwest Regional Integrated Science Assessment (RISA) team, led by scientists from Oregon State, University of Idaho, and the University of Washington. He is currently a co-PI on the University of Idaho’s 5-year 6M EPSCoR Track 2 funded climate and underserved populations project (https://wherewelive.org), as well as senior personnel on Idaho’s 5-year 20M EPSCoR Track 1, which focuses on climate associations to water and energy systems (https://idahocrews.org).
Recent Publications
Seamon, E., Miller, C.R., Johnson-Leung, J., Ridenhour, B.J. (2025) “Spatial Modeling of Sociodemographic Risk for COVID-19 Mortality” BMC Public Health. Under review. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.21.23292785
Williams, P. Jones-Crank, J.L., Daher, B., Thomas, A., Cortus, E. Seamon, E., Kliskey, A. “Meta-Synthesis and R Analysis of Stakeholder Engagement in Food, Energy and Water Literature” (2025). Nature Sustainability. Under Review
Seamon E., Mattera, J., Keim, S.A., Leerkes, E.M., Rennels, J.L., Kayl, A.J., Kulhanek, K.M., Narvaez, D., Sanborn, S.M., Grandits J.B., Schetter, C.D., Coussons-Read, M., Tarullo, A.R., Schoppe-Sullivan, S.J., Thomason, M.E., Braungart-Rieker, J.M., Lumeng, J.C., Lenze, S.N., Christian, L.M., Saxbe, D.E., Stroud, L.R., Rodriguez, C.M., Anzman-Frasca, S., Gartstein. (2024). Leveraging Machine Learning to Study How Temperament Scores Predict Pre-Term Birth Status. Global Pediatrics. Volume 9, 2024, 100220, ISSN 2667-0097, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gpeds.2024.100220
Moxley TA, Johnson-Leung J, Seamon E., Williams C, Ridenhour BJ (2024) Application of elastic net regression for modeling COVID-19 sociodemographic risk factors. PLoS ONE 19(1): e0297065. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297065
Seamon E., Gessler PE, Abatzoglou JT, Mote PW, Lee SS. Climatic Damage Cause Variations of Agricultural Insurance Loss for the Pacific Northwest Region of the United States. Agriculture. (2023). 13(12):2214. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13122214
Seamon, E., Megheib, M., Williams, C. J., Murphy, C. F., & Brown, H. F. (2023). Estimating county level health indicators using spatial microsimulation. Population, Space and Place, e2647.
https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2647
Adhikari, S., Seamon, E., Wu, Y., Sadeghi, S.E., Eigenbrode, S.D. (2022). “Do Invasive and Naturalized Aphid Pest Populations Respond Differently to Climatic and Landscape Factors?” Journal of Economic Entomology. https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toac044
Seamon, E., Gessler, P., Abatzoglou, J., Mote, P., & Lee, S. (2022). A climatic random forest model of agricultural insurance loss for the Northwest United States. Environmental Data Science, 1, E29. https://doi.org/10.1017/eds.2022.27
Gartstein, M.A., Seamon, E., Mattera, J., Bosquet-Enlow, M., Rosalind J. Wright, Perez-Edgar, K., Buss, K., LoBue, V., Bell, M.A., Calkins, S.D., Goodman S.H., Spieker, S., Bridgett, D.J., Salisbury A.L., Mliner S.B., Gunnar, M.R., Muzik, M., Stifter, C.A., Planalp, E.M., Mehr, S.A., Spelke, E.S., Lukowski, A.F., Groh, A.M., Lickenbrock, D.M., Santelli, R., Du Rocher Schudlich, T., Anzman-Frasca S., Thrasher, C., Diaz, A., Dayton C., Moding, K.J., Jordan, E.M. (2022). “Using Machine Learning to Understand Age and Gender Differences in Infant Temperament”. PLOS One https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266026
Ridenhour, B., Sarathchandra, D., Seamon, E., Brown, H., Leung, F.Y., Johnson-Leon, M., Megheib, M., Miller, C., Johnson-Leung, J. (2022). “Effects of trust, risk perception, and health behavior on COVID-19 disease burden: Evidence from a multi-state US survey” Accepted Publication. PLoS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268302
Gartstein, M.A., Seamon, E., Thompson, S.F., Lengua, L., (2018). “Community Crime Exposure and Risk for Obesity: Examining Child Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal (HPA)-Axis Response as a Moderator” Journal of Pediatric Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsx116
Gartstein, M.A., Seamon, E., Thompson, S.F., Lengua L. 2018. “Parenting matters: Moderation of biological and community risk for obesity” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2018.01.004
Seamon, E., Roesch-McNally, G., McNamee, L., Roth, I., Wulfhorst, J., Eigenbrode, S., & Laursen, D., (2017). “Producer Perceptions on Climate Change and Agriculture: A Statistical Atlas”. University of Idaho Agricultural Economics Extension Series 17-01. Funded through award #2011-68002-30191 from USDA-NIFA.
Gartstein, M.A., Prokasky, A., Bell, M.A., Calkins, S., Bridgett, D.J., Braungart-Rieker, J., Leerkes, E., Cheatham, C., Eiden, R.D., Mize, K.D., Jones, N., Mireault, G., & Seamon, E. (2017). Latent Profile and Cluster Analysis of infant temperament: Comparisons across person-centered approaches. Developmental Psychology, 53, 1811-1825 https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000382
Gartstein M.A., Seamon E., Dishion T.J. Geospatial Ecology of Adolescent Problem Behavior: Contributions of Community Factors and Parental Monitoring. J Community Psychol. (2015). Apr;42(3):299-315. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21611