Research interests

I am a behavioral ecologist with expertise in bioacoustics, sensory ecology and acoustic communication. I work broadly to understand how social animals function - how they forage individually and in groups, how they communicate and coordinate motion and activity with conspecifics, and how increasing anthropogenic activities such as underwater noise or marine development affects such life functions in the Anthropocene.
My research has a particular focus on echolocating toothed whales, but I have active research projects spanning across many taxa from communication and acoustic monitoring of fish and invertebrates to large-scale collective behavior and acoustic information flow in spotted hyenas.
I leverage a range of animal-borne high-resolution biologging tags to record and quantify in-situ animal behavior and to take experiments out of the lab and into the wild. I develop new data processing algorithms to extend the capabilities of existing tags, and I collaborate with engineers to develop the next generation of biologgers and smart tags with onboard event detection algorithms to answer new and pressing questions about how animals function and how they are impacted by human activities.
I am keenly interested in science-based conservation and management. I seek to provide data for improved management through research on the effects of anthropogenic noise on marine animals. I am interested in improving acoustic monitoring and density estimation efforts through increased knowledge of marine animal sounds and improved animal detection algorithms.

Appointments
2022-now
Aarhus University, Department of Ecoscience
Senior Scientist
2021-now
Syracuse University, Biology Department
Research Assistant Professor
2019-now
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Biology Department
Visiting Investigator
2018
University of St. Andrews
Associate Lecturer
2016-2018
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies
Assistant Professor
2014-2016
Princeton University, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department
Postdoctoral Fellow
2011-2014
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Biology Department
Postdoctoral Fellow

Education
2011
PhD in Biology, Aarhus University, Denmark
Department of Animal Physiology
2009
MSc in Biology, Aarhus University, Denmark
2006
BSc in Biology, Aarhus University, Denmark

Recent News

2023: A new chapter!

Senior scientist @AU

I am excited to have joined the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the Department of Ecoscience of Aarhus University as a Senior Researcher. I will be updating this website throughout 2023 since we have had a lot of exciting updates, new papers, and new research projects recently. 
January, 2023

Cetacean Caller-ID 

We have a new research project with close colleagues at Syracuse (Susan Parks) and University of St Andrews (Douglas Gillespie). With funding from the US Navy Living Marine Resources, we will be developing and validating methods for identifying focal calls from cetaceans tagged with sound recording tags, with special focus on baleen whales.
June, 2023 - new paper!

Bottlenose dolphin "motherese"

In a new paper published in PNAS and led by Dr. Laela Sayigh and Nicole El Haddad, we show that bottlenose dolphins use change their individually distinctive signature whistles subtly but consistently when in the presence of their calf, thus mirroring the infant-directed speech characteristics found near-universally across human cultures.
Coverage: Science; The Atlantic; AP;