Blog Posts

Written by: Aitana Romero Vaernewyck, Emily Foote, Andy Klein, and Lewis Evans Kick things off with our Maui 2026 field season recap! Each winter, the waters of Maui Nui become a hub of activity as humpback whales return to their breeding grounds. For our team at the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP), this marks the start of an intensive field season focused on understanding whale behavior, physiology, and health. Specifically, our project aims to understand the drivers o

Whether you’re moving between labs, or between continents, transitions always engender a bit of apprehension and uncertainty in academia. Over the last months, I’ve made quite a transition, from Hawaii to North Carolina (working remotely), and from one project to another within the MMRP. This new project is built on the foundation that the lab and I have been building over the last ~3 years. In essence, we will be taking the analytical framework outlined in our recent publica