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Question 6 transcript:
"Two things have surprised me about marine mammal hearing. The first one is how diverse the hearing is. We now know that, one of the newer things also in the field is that, there are a lot of marine mammals out there that hear very well at very low frequencies. For about 50 years we've been studying the ultrasonics, the really high frequency animals, that, like bats, echolocate or they use bio-sonar to image their environment with sound. What we don't know too much about are the animals that hear at infrasonics, hearing frequencies that are below human hearing. So the first thing is how extraordinarily diverse these ears are. And then the second thing that surprised me when I came into the field was how very little we know. How much humans don't understand about something that's clearly important to us. For stewardship of the oceans, we have to know what sounds can impact these animals and how. But also we need to understand what's important about the sound to them. Not just how their ears can be hurt but how sounds can be corrupted, masked, or they can be confused by sound, affected by sound. It's like a workplace problem."

1. How did you first become interested in science?
2. What is the focus of your research and why did you choose this field of study?
3. What have been some of the recent discoveries about how marine mammals hear?
4. How do you study the hearing of marine mammals?
5. What challenges have you faced in studying the hearing of marine mammals?
6. What has most surprised you about the hearing of marine mammals?
7. What skills are important in your area of research?
8. What are the opportunities in studying the hearing of marine mammals? Can people without PhDs participate in some way in this type of research?
9. What is the greatest impact/relevance of your research?
10. What continues to inspire you about your work?
11. What advice would you give a high school student who expressed an interest in pursuing a career in your field?