Jennifer Miksis-Olds

Jennifer Miksis-Olds is an American marine scientist known for her research using acoustics to track marine mammals.

Jennifer Miksis-Olds
Academic background
Education	Harvard University (AB) University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (MS) University of Rhode Island (PhD)
Academic work
Discipline	Biology
Sub-discipline	Marine biology

Education

Miksis-Olds received an A.B. in biology from Harvard University (1996), and during this time she volunteered in a primate lab which she credits as her introduction to acoustics.^[1] Miksis-Olds has an M.S. in biology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (2000)^[2] and spent time as a guest student at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (1996–2004). She obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island in 2006, where she studied the connections between sound and manatees.^[3]

Career

After her graduate work, Miksis-Olds worked at Pennsylvania State University from 2007 until 2016, when she moved to the University of New Hampshire.^[4] She is currently the director of the Center for Acoustics Research and Education at the University of New Hampshire.^[5]

In 2016, Miksis-Olds was elected a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America,^[6]"for contributions to underwater acoustic noise research and the integration of acoustics into marine ecology".

From 2016 to 2018, Miksis-Olds was on the scientific committee of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment,^[7] a group of researchers working on ocean soundscapes and how sound impacts marine organisms. Miksis-Olds is also on the board at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership where her term ends in October 2021.^[8]

Research

Miksis-Olds' graduate research characterized the pattern of sound production from manatees^[9] and measured sound levels in grassbeds inhabited by manatees which revealed that, all else being equal, manatees opt for grassbeds with lower noise levels.^[10] Miksis-Olds' research determined that manatees increase their activity in the presence of sounds similar to boats^[11] and they alter their behavior with periods of higher sound levels connected to increased feeding activity.^[12]

Miksis-Olds has used sound to track the location of marine mammals in the ocean. In the Arctic, Miksis-Olds developed and deployed low power sampling devices to provide data on the presence of whales^[13] and she has a decade-long data set tracking different species of marine mammals in the Bering Sea.^[14] Miksis-Olds has also used acoustic methods to track seals in the Bering Sea where she connected the presence or absence of seals with the amount of sea ice.^[15] Using hydrophone data from the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty International Monitoring System, Miksis-Olds estimated the biodiversity in the near-field vicinity of three hydrophones.^[16] The data are from hydrophones that are part of the system used for monitoring for nuclear explosions and Susan Parks, Miksis-Olds, and Samuel Denes developed a metric that uses sound to assess biodiversity and found correlations between their metric and the number of whale calls around the hydrophones.^[16]

Miksis-Olds examines soundscapes in the ocean, particularly the combination of ambient sound and sound produced by people, to define how marine mammals respond to changes in sound^[17] and was part of a collaboration that identified an increase in sound levels in the Indian Ocean^[18] which can have a negative impact on marine mammals.^[19][20]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miksis-Olds and others have been expanding the global network of hydrophones that can track changes in ambient sound in the ocean.^[21][22] Miksis-Olds is leading the development of software that will allow researchers to share and analyze the data being generated by this network of hydrophones.^{[23][24][25][26]}

Awards and honors

• Young Investigator Award, Office of Naval Research (2011)^[27]
• Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (2013)^[28][29]
• Fellow, Acoustical Society of America (2016)^[6]
• Medwin Prize, Acoustical Society of America (2017)^[30] for "effective use of sound in the discovery and understanding of physical and biological parameters and processes in the sea"