“Approximately every ten years, a beaver scientist is produced at Carleton. And we don’t know why, but it keeps happening,” said Emily Fairfax ’14. Fairfax is a Carleton alum, Assistant Geography Professor at the University of Minnesota and official “science consultant and beaver expert” for “Hoppers” (2026), the recently released Pixar animated comedy.
Before Fairfax, there was Ken Tape ’99, who studies beavers in the Arctic, and after her came Jonah Docter-Loeb ’25, founder of Carleton’s annual Beaver Fest.
But when Fairfax arrived at Carleton in 2010, she had no idea about the beaver future that lay ahead of her. She recalled having a strong interest in STEM, but no strict plan.
“I had a million ideas: I was going to be a doctor; I was going to be an astronaut; I was going to be a chemist; I was going to be an engineer. I had no idea what I was going to be,” Fairfax said.
In her four years at Carleton, Fairfax went on Arb walks “three or four nights a week” and ended up double-majoring in chemistry and physics. Fairfax said that, while her time at Carleton gave her a strong background in the sciences, her plan for life after Carleton was still unclear.
“I knew that I really loved science,” said Fairfax. “And that I really loved the way that, at Carleton, I felt like I was keeping a lot of science doors open… but I didn’t really know what all the options really were.”
After Carleton, Fairfax worked as a weapons engineer on nuclear weapons because, she said, “it was an easy job to get into,” but she felt unsatisfied.
“It didn’t align with what I wanted in my life for a lot of reasons. So I was at my job and trying to figure out what was next, and I felt a little mopey that I had found myself on a path I didn’t necessarily want to be on,” she said.
But then, Fairfax happened upon a documentary called “Leave It To Beavers.” She was hooked.
“I was fascinated that [the documentary] kept saying there were things we didn’t understand about beavers. At the time, I was like, ‘We must have solved this animal — it’s been a thing for so long.’ But surprise: we have not,” Fairfax said, “So I got hooked on it, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Inspired by the documentary, Fairfax applied to graduate school for Earth and Environmental Sciences, hoping to fuel her newfound passion and study beavers.
“There have been waves of beaver interest over time, but beavers were… not in vogue when I was doing my graduate work. And there were a lot of people who thought it was a little ridiculous,” Fairfax said. “There were people who, theoretically, should have been mentors to me that were very dismissive of the idea of beavers being even in the same conversation as climate change adaptation.”
Her 2019 dissertation, “Building Climate Resiliency in a Warming World: from beaver dams to undergraduate education,” studied beavers’ ability to create drought resilient and wildfire resistant environments. The dissertation also included accompanying research about how to make the field of Earth and Environmental Sciences more welcoming. Fairfax’s dissertation, along with the work of other beaver-interested academics, contributed to a growing interest in beavers as climate managers.
“[Starting in 2018/2019,] there were a couple of really good papers on what was lost when we lost beavers across North America. And then my research on [how beavers mitigate the damage of] fires came out, and that was very timely with some of our really bad wildfire years. Then that kicked off this momentum about ‘Well, what else can beavers do?’” Fairfax said. “Since then, there’s just been a huge amount of research on how [beavers] can intercept flood waves, how they improve biodiversity, how they provide habitat for key pollinators, how they store carbon, how they remove pollution from the water. And every time a new study comes out, people get re-hyped about beavers!”
Today, the role of beavers in climate protection is widely recognized.
“I look back and just smile, knowing that now, [beavers’ role in climate change adaptation] is much more common language. We talk about it all the time. There’s no skepticism anymore,” Fairfax said.
Despite the growing appreciation for beavers in academia, Fairfax never imagined beaver research would lead her to a job at Pixar. Her unique role as “science consultant and beaver expert” started around five years ago, when someone from Pixar saw Fairfax give a virtual speech at the California Beaver Summit.
“They reached out a couple of months after that and just said, ‘Hello, we are Pixar. Could you give us a talk about beavers? Also, here’s an enormous NDA if you say yes.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, wow. Okay!” Fairfax said.
One talk turned into many talks, which turned into Fairfax leading a group of Pixar employees through beaver ponds for a week. Eventually, as Pixar’s official “beaver expert and science advisor,” Fairfax watched early versions of “Hoppers” and gave scientific notes.
In this role, Fairfax said she advised about beaver inaccuracies, such as the common artistic choice to draw beavers sitting with their tails out behind them. In “Hoppers,” the beavers curl up their tails underneath their bodies when they sit, a position Fairfax said was more realistic. The only character who sits with their tail stretched out behind them is Mabel, the fake robot-beaver.
Fairfax also advised the Pixar team on beaver agility. In an early cut of the movie, Mabel is shown to be climbing a tree.
“And I was like, ‘Beavers can’t climb. This is ridiculous.’ And [the Pixar employees] were like, ‘Well, can they climb at all?’ And I said… what you have is way too high for a beaver,” said Fairfax.
When Fairfax watched the movie, her revision was integrated into the film in an unexpected way. “[The leader of the beavers] sees Mabel climbing the tree, and he goes, ‘Mabel, I don’t think beavers can climb… Mabel, that’s way too high for a beaver… So it’s directly in there, they’re acknowledging that’s ridiculous,” she said.
Still, not everything in the film is perfectly accurate. Fairfax said that the film had to compromise on some aspects of beaver accuracy.
“They made their teeth not orange,” Fairfax said. “Beaver teeth are orange. [Pixar] made them kind of an off-white,” Fairfax said. “That was a compromise. The teeth could either be gleaming white,… or they could be an off-white, and [Pixar] went with off-white to appease me and to be a little more accurate.”
Fairfax also mentioned that real beavers are much larger than the characters in “Hoppers.”
“A beaver as an adult weighs between 40 and 110 pounds… If a beaver were to stand up next to you, it would be very tall next to you. [Pixar] tried rendering that a few times, and it just looked monstrous,” Fairfax said. “This is probably fine. [The height change] isn’t really about their behavior or their status as an ecosystem engineer, so it is fine.”
This year, when the film was released, Fairfax found herself attending a Hollywood premiere, receiving requests for interviews and participating in various fancy events.
“Seeing two hours of hair and makeup on my schedule, I was like, ‘What do you even do for two hours? How? What? What’s the process?’ That was very different,” Fairfax said.
After the excitement dies down, Fairfax said that she hopes “Hoppers” will contribute to the momentum of beaver research, bringing more attention to the creatures she studies.
“We should care about beavers because… humanity is facing one of the biggest challenges ever in the history of our existence, which is climate change and massive shifts to the environments we’ve come to know and optimize our existence around. Dealing with climate change is probably too big of a challenge for us to do on our own, so we need to be smart about finding partners and allies,” Fairfax said. “Beavers are an extraordinarily powerful [ally] that is willing to work with us, and all we have to do is say yes to the beavers. We don’t have to convince them.”
Carleton’s annual student-run Beaver Fest event will be held on Saturday, May 16 from 1:00–3:00 p.m. for any students interested in beaver education.