Brijonnay Madrigal

Brijonnay Madrigal

My passion lies in marine mammal acoustics and the communication and behavioral function of vocalizations. In Spring 2016, I graduated from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa with a B.S. in Marine Biology and a B.A. in Communication. As an undergraduate, I was selected as a NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship recipient. Through this program, I completed a research internship at the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center, where I determined sperm whale abundance using passive acoustic data. This experience started marine mammal acoustics pursuits. I have since been involved in field studies, volunteer opportunities and internships to study and learn various aspects of cetacean acoustics, behavior, husbandry and psychology in Hawai’i, Florida and Puerto Rico. I served as a research assistant for a project conducted in collaboration with both the U.S. Navy and the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology Marine Mammal Research Program, to assess dolphin presence through whistle detection at sonar detonation sites.

My research at MLML was under the direction of Dr. Alison Stimpert and Dr. Gitte McDonald. My master’s thesis focused on characterizing acoustic behavior of odontocete species and is comprised of two parts: (1) A data analysis of passive acoustic data (provided by the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center) of killer whales from the Bering and Chukchi Sea, Alaska to formulate a vocal catalog of pulsed calls. (2) A passive acoustic study of free-ranging Risso's dolphin whistle and burst pulse vocal repertoires in Monterey Bay, California.

 

Bri defended her thesis titled "Determining ecotype presence and the call repertoire of killer whales (Orcinus orca) recorded near Point Hope, Alaska" in 2019. You can read her thesis manuscript here.