The Whitehead Lab

Our next lab member introduction: Sophia!

Sophia is a a Volunteer Research Assistant in the Whitehead Lab and she is currently assisting Christine by analyzing recordings of s***m whales looking for specific vocalizations like slow clicks!

Now that the summer months are here, you can find her at the beach, on a bike trail or under the water with her camera!

A HUGE congratulations goes out to our 2026 graduates! 💌

Charlotte, Kyra, Madi, Lynelle, and Daisy (not pictured)…. we are all so extremely proud of you for all of your hard work and dedication to your degree and your research, and we are incredibly grateful to have you all as a part of the lab.

We cannot wait to see what amazing things you all will do in the coming years!! Best wishes, The Whitehead Lab 💙

Our next lab member introduction is: Gerri Summers!

Gerri’s USRA project in the Whitehead Lab focuses on s***m whale research. This spring, she had the opportunity to complete fieldwork in The Bahamas, assisting with the data collection in less studied regions. She is now cataloging individuals and using acoustic analysis to distinguish between clans and to calculate the body lengths of individual whales. Through the study of these datasets, she hopes to advance our understanding of s***m whale populations in Bahamian waters. Gerri is particularly interested in the cognition and the ecology of marine mammals!

As researchers, an important question to ask is “What is the impact of our research on the wildlife we study?”

In this recent paper, Hal, Christine and Ana put old ‘bad’ photo-identification photos to work to investigate this question, in the context of boat-based photo-identification of s***m whales. They found evidence of habituation, with individuals becoming more tolerant of the research vessel once they had encountered it more often.

You can find the open access paper at: doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0348681

Next for our lab member introductions is: Daisy !!

Daisy is a fourth year undergraduate Marine Biology student completing her honours with the Whitehead Lab. She’s currently studying northern bottlenose whales. For her project, Daisy is using drone imagery to explore whether differences in whale head (melon) shape and body length can be used to identify s*x in this elusive, deep-diving species. Reliably identifying the s*x of individuals is crucial in order to understand and monitor northern bottlenose whale population dynamics, which in turn is important for ongoing conservation efforts for this species.

When she’s not measuring whales, you’ll probably find her gazing wistfully at the ocean from the LSC’s windows or actually in the ocean any chance she can get!

Last month, Christine Clarke (Whitehead Lab PhD candidate .you.know.by.christine) spoke about her research currently underway on the vocal behaviour of male s***m whales. By characterizing what these whales say, Christine aims to better understand their culture and how they fit in to broader s***m whale society. This was at Simon Fraser University’s Inter-Departmental Ecology of Aquatic Systems Symposium ***mwhale