Shane had been the driving force behind the DSWP since 2005. He has spent thousands of hours in the company of the over 30 whale families off Dominica. His research is focused on the link between multilevel societies and functionally diverse communication systems. Shane is currently a Scientist-In-Residence in the Department of Biology at Carleton University.

Shane oversees the both the research objectives and the field operations of the DSWP. He co-supervises or sits on the advisory committee of all of the students working on the project. Learn more about Shane at his personal website.

Tim applies genetic analyses to the study of wildlife populations to better understand their biology. Most of his work is on endangered marine mammal species, and therefore our work often involves using genetic analyses to aid management and/or conservation initiatives, to better understand why these endangered species are not recovering, and to identify what role, if any, genetic factors are playing in reducing recovery potential.

Learn more about Tim and his Lab at St. Mary's University at The Frasier Lab

Peter studies the sensory physiology and behavioral ecology of marine animals with special focus on how they use and produce sound to navigate, find food, avoid predators and communicate. Primary areas of investigation include biosonar and sound production in toothed whales, kinematics of feeding and locomotion in cetaceans, and underwater communication and sound propagation in cetaceans with implications for effects of man-made noise and passive acoustic monitoring.

Peter's Marine Bioacoustics Lab at Aarhus University pursue an integrative biology approach to experiments at an organismal level with emphasis on how animals work in an evolutionary context.

Luke has broad research interests, largely centred around the evolution of learning, behaviour and communication, with a special focus on marine mammals.

Luke  is currently supervising Michael Petroni's MRes research on interaction between whales and vessel traffic off Dominica

He is a Reader in Biology at the University of St. Andrews and is affiliated with the Scottish Ocean Institute, Sea Mammal Research Unit, the Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, and the Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences. Learn more about Luke on the University of St. Andrews Researcher Portal

Hal's work is principally on the behaviour, social structure, population biology and conservation of sperm whales, techniques of studying social structure, and more general questions about social structure in mammals and cultural evolution.

His Cetacean Research Group at Dalhousie University conducts research on the culture, behavioural ecology, social organisation, ranging behaviour, distribution, population biology, acoustic behaviour and conservation of several cetacean species, particularly the sperm whale, northern bottlenose whale, and the long-finned pilot whale.

Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) is scientist-led, multi-institutional research initiative applying advanced machine learning and gentle robotics to listen to and decipher sperm whale communication. Project CETI is a 2020 TED Audacious Project.

CETI’s science team is made up of world’s leading artificial intelligence and natural language processing experts, cryptographers, linguists, marine biologists, roboticists, and underwater acousticians from a network of universities and other partners.

As a founding partner in Project CETI, The Dominica Sperm Whale Project’s in-depth knowledge and long-term dataset of the sperm whale community in the Eastern Caribbean has provided the decades of baseline data upon which to launch the initiative in 2020.

Balaena from the mast courtesy of Marina Milligan

Courtney Baumgartner
MSc Candidate
Carleton University
Project CETI

Mapal Ishay
MSc Candidate
Haifa University
Project CETI

Pernille Tønnesen
Post Doctoral Fellow
Aarhus University

Doctorate

2022 Felicia Vachon

2021 Taylor Hersh

2020 Pernille Tonnesen

Masters

2019 Ellen Jacobs

2018 Wilfried Beslin

2017 Michael Petroni

2017 Christine Konrad

2017 Anne Bøttcher

2012 Marina Milligan

Bachelor

2018 Peter Bermant

2016 Mia Nielsen

2014 Keith Wigley

2014 Anne Bøttcher

Funders

Research funds for past and current work originates from the following organizations: