Dr. Whitlow Au
One of Whit's long term interest was to learn how dolphins use their biosonar in the wild to detect, discriminate, recognize and localize prey. This included odontocetes such as beaked, pilot and sperm whales and Risso’s dolphins that forage at deep depths between 600–1200 m. Another interest of his was how the biosonar beam is formed in the heads of dolphins, including the relative role of different structures within the head.
Sadly, we lost Whit in 2020.
Please visit the In Memoriam SOEST page
Biography
Dr. Whitlow Au was an emeritus research professor at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and former Chief Scientist of the Marine Mammal Research Program at HIMB. He was awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award (3rd highest national award for Navy civilian employee), for contributions in dolphin bioacoustics before transferring to the University of Hawaii. He was a member of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences, a vice-president and president of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), and the recipient of the Silver medal in Bioacoustics and the Gold medal both from the ASA. He was on the Danish National Research Foundation blue ribbon panel to evaluate several biological research centers in Denmark and a member of the National Research Council of the National Academies to examine the effects of ocean noise on marine mammal populations. Dr. Au authored the book “The Sonar of Dolphins,” co-author two other books, co-edited three books involving dolphin acoustics and had over 226 peer-reviewed publications to his name. He was an associate editor in Animal Bioacoustics for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. He was the proud grandfather of 7 grandchildren.