Hannah Myers, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She focuses on reducing incidental human-caused mortality of marine mammals and on basic ecological research to inform conservation and management. In Alaska, her work includes a collaborative project with the Amendment 80 trawl fleet in the Bering Sea to understand killer whale behavior around trawl vessels and modify nets to reduce killer whale bycatch risk; as well as co-leading a long-term killer whale monitoring program in Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords, where she focuses on bioacoustics. She teaches marine policy at UAF.

Talk: TBD

Time: Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Fred has been studying the foraging ecology of humpback whales in SE Alaska since 1987. He received his Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University, focusing his research on acoustics, social behavior, and bubble tools. Fred’s interest in conservation biology has led him to follow whales to their Hawaiian wintering grounds to document their historical ecology and legacy impacts of commercial whaling. He has been awarded the Fairfield Award for Innovative Marine Mammal Research and the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s Award for Excellence in Scientific Communication. A naturalist in the classical tradition, he enjoys botanizing and preserving high latitude Mediterranean plant communities. During his undergraduate years at the University of Washington, he co-authored and illustrated Wild Plants of the San Juan Islands, followed by Birding in the San Juan Islands.  Fred volunteers with NOAA as a large whale disentangler.

Talk: TBD

Time: Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Dr. Ted Cheeseman is a research fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz and co-founder and director of Happywhale, a research collaboration and citizen science platform that uses AI-powered image recognition to track individual whales globally. He completed his PhD in Marine Science at Southern Cross University, Australia, where his widely collaborative work on North Pacific humpback whale populations leveraged AI technology to identify nearly every living whale in the region—revealing that one-third of Hawaiʻi’s humpback population was lost following a three-year marine heatwave.

Born into a family of biologists and expedition leaders, Ted led Antarctic expeditions for 30 years before pivoting to marine science. His research has been published in over 40 peer-reviewed papers, and he has contributed to international research collaborations spanning all the world’s oceans. Through Happywhale, he aims to democratize whale research by bringing together scientists and citizen scientists to document entire ocean populations—achieving in a day what previously required a year of data processing. When not studying whales, Ted is happiest anywhere wild, especially in surf, snow, and high mountains.

Talk: TBD

Time: Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Flip Nicklin is a world-renowned underwater photographer. He has spent his 47-year career specializing in the photography of marine mammals, especially whales and dolphins. Through 21 National Geographic articles from 1981 to the present, he has worked closely with top whale researchers from around the world. From this work Flip brings a unique, global perspective on the study of whales to Whale Trust. Flip has assisted on studies of humpback whales in Hawaii since the 1970s, and lives in Maui for a portion of each year. His work is featured in Among Giants, A Life with Whales and in 2012, Flip was bestowed one of the highest honors by The North American Nature Photography Association by being named Outstanding Photographer of the Year.

Talk: TBD

Time: Jun 30, 8:11 pm

Jun 30, 8:11 pm