Chloe Kotik
Killer whales and killer contaminants: researching toxic pollution in the ocean’s top predator
About the Speaker
Chloe Kotik is a killer whale ecologist and PhD candidate in the Horstmann Marine Mammal Lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Born and raised in Boston, MA, she moved to the west coast in 2016 to earn her BS and MS degrees at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she embarked on what would become a career specialization in the ecology of our oceans’ top predators. Having worked on a variety of projects investigating the health, growth, and behavior of killer whales, her current research at UAF aims to unravel fundamental aspects of life history, as well as the effects of toxic pollutants, in a threatened mammal-eating specialist population. Chloe is also the Board Secretary of the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s Alaska Student Chapter, an associate researcher with the Orca Conservancy, and a scientific illustrator specializing in watercolor and digital media.