B.Sc., Biology, Ohio State Univ., 1971
Ph.D., Behavioral Biology and Ecology, Stony Brook Univ., 1978
Post‑Doctoral Res., Ctr. for Marine Studies, Univ. of Santa Cruz, 1978—1981

Society for Marine Mammalogy, Past President (1991-1993); Distinguished Teacher Award, Texas A&M University, 1994; Chairman’s Award for Research, National Geographic Society, 1998; Academy Award Nomination, Science Advisor, IMAX movie “Dolphins”, 2000; Awarded Regents Professorship, 2006; Distinguished Achievement Award: Graduate Mentoring, Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University; Minnie Piper Award for Teaching Excellence, 2010; George P. Mitchell '40 Chair in Sustainable Fisheries, 2012; University Distinguished Professor, 2013

I study behavioral ecology of marine mammals – especially small cetaceans of late – and thus am interested in how animals in the marine environment cope with the amazing demands made on them – by nature and by our human-generated influence and at times partial to wholesale destruction of their natural habitats. I have been fortunate to study river dolphins in Peru and China, oceanic whales in Argentina, far east Russia, and the Arctic; and a host of delphinids from the Bahamas to Patagonia Argentina, from north-central California to Hong Kong and South Island New Zealand. I especially enjoy collaborative efforts, and have published with students and colleagues on issues of multi-species interactions among pinnipeds and cetaceans, marine mammals and marine birds, and noise pollution and mitigative effects.

My students and I tend to believe in a more global “Weltanschauung” (or world view), where we realize (or think we understand, smiles) that over-uses of plastics and hydrocarbon fuels and other agents of modern society, compromise attempts for long-term sustainable existence on a seemingly resistant but ultimately fragile Earth. We can win economically both in the short-term and environmentally in the long-term, not just for us, but for our children and childrens’ children, and – of course – beyond. We must so look ahead, or be at risk of being the generation that helped immediate “jobs” and immediate future, but forgot the true future and genetic legacy that is us.