October 20, 2021, via Zoom The program: Humpback whale song changed the human relationship with whales when it was first recorded in the 1970s. But humpback whales do more than sing, and their social sounds – or “calls” – can tell us more about how they communicate and engage with their environments in an increasingly noisy world. In this talk, Dr. Michelle Fournet, whose work took center stage in the recently released Apple TV+ documentary, Fathom, shares her research on humpback whale calls, what it has revealed about their culture, and how increased human activity impacts ocean life. The speaker: Dr. Michelle Fournet is an acoustic ecologist that studies marine animal communication. Her research program spans the tropics to the poles investigating toadfish, snapping shrimp, Arctic seals, and bowhead whales, but her primary focus is on how humpback whales communicate on their Alaskan foraging grounds, and their resilience to changing ocean soundscapes. Dr. Fournet received her MS and Ph.D. from Oregon State University, where she worked with NOAA and the National Park Service. She is a postdoctoral researcher with Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and also the director of the Sound Science Research Collective.

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