Oceanic Society Researchers

John Calambokidis is a Senior Research Biologist and co-founder (in 1979) of Cascadia Research, a non-profit organization. Since 1986, Cascadia researchers have conducted a long-term study of the humpback and blue whales along the California coast, and since the 1990’s the study has expanded to include whales off Mexico and Central America. Besides blue whales, his research has evaluated contaminant impacts on marine mammals and examined the biology of humpback and gray whale.

Demian Chapman Ph.D., is  an internationally recognized shark expert with almost a decade of experience working on sharks in Belize.  He is co-principal investigator for the Pew Institute research on shark conservation in Belize.  He is a molecular ecologist and field biologist who specializes in integrating diverse new technologies including DNA analysis, acoustic and satellite tracking in conservation oriented studies on sharks.

Katherine Cure holds an M.S. in tropical marine ecology and fisheries biology from James Cook University in Australia. Her specialty is tropical reef fish, their ecology, population dynamics and fisheries.  She worked as an assistant in reef monitoring surveys of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Knowledgeable in coral reef species in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indo-Pacific, familiar with worldwide conservation issues and experienced in living at remote locations, Katherine brings a wealth of experience to every expedition.

Dr. Nicole Duplaix is an Ecampus instructor at Oregon State University in global resource ecology. and is Vice-chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature - Otter Specialist Group.

Virginia Fuhs M.S., Western Illinois University also holds an M.A. in Science Education. Her thesis projects addressed spinner dolphin spacial relations.   She previously conducted dolphin research for Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida. She also served as as a sea turtle research assistant  for the  IUCN, Suriname. 

She works as a  seasonal field research biologist for the Oceanic Society in Belize and Suriname.

Daisy Kaplan MS University of Massachusetts and doctoral candidate at
Emory University.  The Bahamas dolphin project  served as part of her M.S. 
thesis project.  Her doctoral thesis is on bottlenose dolphin acoustics,  based
at the Belize Oceanic Field Station .  She has spent of number of years working
as a biologist at the University of Hawaii's Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal
Laboratory studying dolphins.

Mario Mota Ph.D.,  is currently at the University of Florida, Gainsville researching how beach nourishment projects impact the nesting, incubation, hatching and physiology of sea turtles in Florida.  He has worked as a marine mammal and sea turtle scientist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Mote Marine Laboratories for 11 years. He is also involved in  a sea turtle population study in the Marquesas Atoll.   Mario and Leslee worked together in Cuba to promote manatee and sea turtle conservation.

Leslee Parr  Ph.D.,  is an Associate Professor at San Jose State University in San Jose, California where she teaches population genetics, evolutionary genetics, conservation genetics and the natural history of vertebrates. Leslee also runs an active genetics research laboratory where she and her students have investigated the conservation and evolutionary genetics of manatees and dugongs.

Katheryn Patterson is an MS candidate in the department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. The Turneffe dolphin project will serve as the basis for her thesis. Katheryn has worked for the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation conducting humpback whale and fin whale research, and completed an internship at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.  This will be her second year  at the Blackbird Oceanic Field Station.