Congratulations to VEL student Taylor Azizeh for advancing to candidacy!

Taylor's thesis will focus on investigating the foraging ecology of late chick-rearing emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) off Cape Crozier, West Antarctica. Specifically, Taylor will use machine learning to identify potential foraging events from biologging data. By combining foraging attempt and dive data, Taylor can estimate what potential costs and benefits of different foraging strategies might be. Ultimately, Taylor hopes that her work will offer novel information to the seabird ecology world, and that eventually, this work can be used in management strategies to better protect ice-obligate species like penguins.