About Us

Whale Scientists is a blog created by two grad students to share knowledge about whales and dolphins.

Meet our founders

Anaïs Remili & Naomi Mathew met in Italy in 2016

We met in June 2016. We were both moving to Italy for a bit to work on whales and dolphins of the Ligurian Sea. We ended up being roommates and spent the most amazing summer together eating gelato, travelling around and spending time at sea.

Anaïs Remili

Anaïs is a PhD Student at McGill university working on pollution and ecology in North Atlantic killer whales. She is the founder of Whale Scientists. You can find her personal website here.

Naomi Mathew

Naomi Mathew is a PhD student at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She works on bioacoustics in marine mammals from the Gulf of Mexico. She is the co-founder of Whale Scientists.

Click on our founders to know their whole story and see how they got to where they are now

Frequently Asked Questions

What is "Whale Scientists"?

Our website aims to be a platform where people from all backgrounds can learn a thing or two about marine mammals. We write fun posts about whale science, marine mammal species, and how to conduct whale research.

We are all early-career researchers. On top of sharing our knowledge, we wish to help aspiring marine mammalogists reach their goals by giving them tips on becoming whale scientists.

Finally, we share the incredible journeys of young whale scientists in our Whale Scientists Stories. We want to give young researchers a voice and a platform to share their knowledge.

Why did we create this website?

We had the idea to create this website 4 years ago and launched it in May 2020.

Most of the information we could read about whales came from scientific publication or mass media. We thought it was time for early-career scientists to share what they know about whales. After all, young researchers are the ones conducting the research, processing the data and writing the papers. We wanted to give young researchers a voice, and a way to share their knowledge.

The goal of our website is to talk about whales in a fun and entertaining way, as well as helping students who want to work on whales by giving them tips and ideas on how to achieve their dream.

Who do we write for?

1) People from every background interested in whales. 2) Students who want to work on whales but do not know exactly how to get there. 3) People curious about whale scientists. 4) People who want to interact with whale scientists.

What if you want to contribute?

We are open to any collaboration. If there is a topic you want to write about, we would love to help you publish it here. If you are a whale scientist and want to share your story, we are open to it as well.

How can you contact us?

You can contact us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, in the comments or on our contact page. We always make sure to respond within a couple hours.

When do we write new posts?

We are very busy with school, research and other activities. We make sure to upload content at least once a week. But we do not have a fixed schedule.

Do we have a newsletter?

This is something we are working on at the moment. We are trying to find how to make it work. We update our social media every week so you can stay up-to-date if you follow our social media pages. If you are interested in subscribing to a newsletter, let us know, we will work harder to give set it up!

When did we launch?

We launched on May 15th 2020. We worked months on the website before we launched it.

Meet our awesome writers from all around the world!
If you click on their name of photo, you can access their posts.

Laura Zeppetelli-Bédard is a student and research assistant at Université du Québec à Montréal (BSc biology, Laboratory of Dr. Cassandre Lazar, UQAM).

Eline van Aalderink is a recent MSc Marine Biology graduate from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), where she specialised in marine mammal ecology and conservation biology.

Mackenzie Preble obtained M.S. in marine science from Hawaii Pacific University. She has a passion for wildlife rehabilitation and science communication.

Katharina J. Peters is a postdoctoral fellow at Massey University, auckland, New Zealand. Her current projects focus on the foraging ecology and distribution of odontocetes in New Zealand waters.

Carissa is a conservation communicator based in Hawaii. My technical background in marine mammals spans stranding response, education and outreach, field work, and rescue interventions for numerous cetacean species found in Hawaiian waters.

Rox is an enthusiast biologist born and raised at the Andes Mountains’ crossroads. Her interests lie in the intersection of marine microbiology, climate, and One Health. She is devoted to making research an eco-friendy practice wherever she goes.

Olivia is a 25 years-old student in marine biology, biodiversity working on marine bioacoustics in Sperm Whales. She is passionate about science communication and has her own YouTube channel and blog in Spanish.

Marianna is a PhD student at the University of Liège. Her research is specialized in ecotoxicology of Arctic seals

Chiara obtained her Honours Bsc in Marine Biology from the University of Aberdeen. She volunteered in Galicia at the BDRI, where she helped with dolphins Photo-ID and boat surveys. She also spent one year in Tromsø as an Erasmus student and participated in an expedition in West Ice to study harp and hooded seals.

Brianna has a background in marine biology and currently works as a live-aboard deckhand/educator at the Los Angeles Maritime Institute (LAMI). Her research interests include ocean conservation, specifically in the high seas and polar regions, and identifying marine mammal vocalizations in the global soundscape. She is passionate about music and can’t write without coffee.

Marine biologist and animal trainer and behaviourist. I started my journey by studying marine biology at the University of Gdansk.Currently, I am a keeper and trainer at Warsaw Zoo in Poland as well as a PhD student at Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities.

Saskia Cathrin Martin is an MSc student in Animal Ecology at Lund University, Sweden. Her focus is cetology, with main research interests in population ecology and bioacoustics. She investigates the lunar cycle influence on cetaceans in the Azores and the song structure of humpback whales in Northern Norway.

Deborah is a PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).
Her research focuses on ecomorphological variation of toothed whales skulls using 3D geometric morphometrics.

Jamie is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington. Her work largely centers around research questions related to conservation and theories of evolutionary biology. Although most of her work has focused on seals, Jamie also has research experience with bottlenose dolphins and Florida manatees.

Miranda is a current postgraduate student on the Marine Mammal Science MSc at the University of St Andrews and recently graduated from a Chemistry BSc at University College London. After the MSc, she hopes to combine her passions of chemistry and cetaceans to work in the field of ecotoxicology.

Hanna is a biologist from Germany who focuses on marine mammals. She has been working as a naturalist for whale watching companies in different parts of Iceland. She spent the last three summer seasons as a guide and lecturer in Antarctica.

Meet our founders

Anaïs Remili & Naomi Mathew met in Italy in 2016

Anaïs Remili

Naomi Mathew

Click on our founders to know their whole story and see how they got to where they are now