Blog Posts

Written by MMRP PostDoc Alec Burslem For a while it looked like I was going to be a chef.  It was 2009, and after a couple of disappointing A-level results in biology and chemistry had shaken my confidence in studying biology as I had always wanted to, I'd decided to study law. My thinking was that if I wasn’t cut out for science and would be of more use if I became a human rights lawyer and spent my life trying to help people. To make ends meet, I’d worked in a string of res

Written by MMRP PostDoc Jake Linsky My philosophy career was derailed somewhere between the sea lions in California and pods of competitive humpback whales in Queensland’s crystal waters. As an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, my priorities firmly rested in surfing and catching the next Dead concert. Needless to say, research wasn’t really on my radar. I did, however, have a keen interest in language cognition and the workings of the animal mind. As my philosophy degree progre

Written by MMRP PhD student Fiona-Elaine Strasser ~ During my first trip to Antarctica working as a polar expedition guide, I expected a routine zodiac cruise in Paradise Bay in the Drake’s Passage. But moments after we started the cruise, soft blows echoed all around us, and suddenly, gliding calmly through the glassy waters, a group of humpback whales surfaced and passed directly by us. As I turned off the engine of my zodiac, I realized:  We were merely tiny spectators sur

Written by MMRP MSc student Lewis Evans Lewis Evans | mysite ( mmrphawaii.org ) Thank you, Attenborough! I have always been interested in the natural world and the outdoors (I know it’s cliché but it’s also true). Although, being from a small town in inland England I wasn’t familiar with ocean/coastal environments until David Attenborough showed us via The Blue Planet. From here my interest in the marine environment only grew. My way to stay connected to the ocean was through

Written by Kyleigh Fertitta Since I was young, I knew I wanted a career in marine science because it seemed to combine a couple of my favorite things, the ocean, the life in it, and science. I grew up in San Jose California and spent any free time I had, since I could drive, in Santa Cruz. Growing up, my dad taught me to love the outdoors through camping, beach days, ski trips, lake days, and more. With this great love for the outdoors, I felt a responsibility to have a car

By Will Gough, PhD. Post Doctoral Researcher A research journey can start anywhere. Mine started in a parking lot. I was a pre-veterinary student walking back from my animal nutrition class along Tower Road on Cornell University’s picturesque campus when I noticed Dr. Betty McGuire walking along next to me down the aisle of cars. I had taken her vertebrate anatomy course during my freshman year and loved it, but I had no reason to think she would remember who I was – I sat q

Jens Currie September 2022 Throughout my entire life, I have always lived close to the ocean. Whether it was my childhood home on the Bay of Fundy or my current office in the middle of the Pacific, the ocean was never far away. As a child, I enjoyed going whale watching when we had visitors, but I never thought I’d be studying whales in Hawai’i someday. It has been 15 years since I last attended university and most of that time has been spent researching whales and dolphins

Written by Augusta Hollers I am very excited and grateful to be starting my PhD at the MMRP! For my dissertation I will be using CATS tags to look at the fine-scale movement and acoustic behavior of humpback whales in their Hawaiian breeding grounds and Alaskan feeding grounds. I am looking forward to getting more experience working in the field, and getting to help tag the animals I'll be working with. Iʻm also so glad to work in a lab with a focus on conservation and manag

By Phil Patton Almost exactly one year ago, I read an advertisement for a research assistantship with the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaiʻi and choose to apply. I was feeling nervous because, after six months of scrolling though the job boards, this was the only PhD project that drew me enough to apply. While I had considered other projects, this one, which involves evaluating the health of whale populations in the Main Hawaiian Islands, was the fir

Written by Claire Lacey In the early days of the pandemic, I wrote a blog entry for the UK Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management in which I compared lockdown (as Stay-at Home orders are called back home) to being on a ship. My tongue-in-cheek conclusion was that it was similar – only with pets, better internet access and a reduced risk of seasickness. I wrote that blog in early April 2020, back when we thought restrictions would only be for a few weeks,

Written by Liah McPherson Studying dolphins has always been my life’s goal. Truly, I cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn’t fascinated by these animals (my parents have saved many anatomically pathetic drawings of dolphins from my early childhood). So in April, when I found out I was accepted to the Marine Biology Graduate Program at UH Manoa set to work with the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP) –– to say I was overjoyed would be an understatement! After mo

Written by Brijonnay Madrigal Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist. I always loved the ocean but my desire to become a marine biologist started with a National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) marine science camp I attended when I was in the 6th grade. I remember how captivating it was to hear the scientists talk about underwater research and how excited I was that people had these amazing jobs that allowed them to explore the oce