About

Prof. Len Thomas is Professor of Statistics at the University of St Andrews and former Director of the Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling (CREEM). Len has over thirty years of research experience at the interface between statistics, ecology, conservation, and computing, and has led numerous projects developing innovative methods for population assessment of wild animals, particularly marine mammals. In recent years, Len has been particularly active in the development and implementation of methods for quantifying human-caused disturbance on animal behavior and the population consequences of disturbance. Len is currently collaborating on a parallel project “Wildlife and Offshore Wind” (WOW) aimed at developing a systems approach to research and risk assessment for offshore wind development from Maine to North Carolina.

Dr Enrico Pirotta is a Research Fellow within the Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling (CREEM). Enrico is an expert in quantitative ecology, cetacean bioenergetics, and individual-based modelling, with applications to both the PCoD and PCoMS frameworks, which he co-developed. Over the last ten years, Enrico has led numerous projects on the effects of disturbance from human activities (e.g., vessel traffic, seismic surveys, pile driving) on cetacean populations, from small delphinids to large baleen whales. This includes the development of a bioenergetic model for eastern North Pacific blue whales, which provided a basis for predicting changes in female vital rates under various scenarios of environmental change and disturbance from offshore developments.

Dr Catriona Harris is is Deputy Director of the Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling (CREEM); she has been carrying out research on the impact of anthropogenic stressors on marine mammals for over 10 years, and specifically on the behavioral responses of individuals to noise, and the consequences for populations, for the last 8 years. Since 2012, she has been PI or Co-I (with the role of project manager) on nine funded projects investigating the impact of stressors (primarily military sonar) on marine mammals, four of which have specifically focused on the development and application of analytical methods for analyzing data from behavioral response studies. A more recent focus has been on the development of new frameworks and conceptual models to help understand the links between human-caused stressors and population consequences.

Dr Phil Bouchet is a quantitative ecologist and a Research Fellow within the Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling (CREEM). Phil has over a decade of experience in conducting applied research on cetaceans and other marine vertebrates using a range of numerical and statistical modelling techniques. His current research focuses on developing new methods for modelling and predicting behavioral responses in marine mammals exposed to noise disturbance such as Navy sonar.