Cantor Lab

Stephane P. G. de Moura,

2019-2023 (2022-2023 at OSU)

PhD student, Graduate Program in Coastal and Oceanic Systems, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil

Visiting PhD student, Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University, USA

Co-Supervisors: Dr. Camila Domit, Mauricio Cantor

PhD thesis: Distribution and spatial dynamics of Guiana dolphins, Sotalia guianensis, and the potential vulnerability to impacts on the Paraná coast, southern Brazil. 
What is she up to? Stephane studies the distribution and the spatial dynamics of Guiana dolphins along the Paraná Coast, Brazil, and the role of individual variation in space use in drivingvulnerability to anthropic impacts. Stephane is also a collaborating researcher at the NGO MarBrasil, where she works on the biology and ecology of Green turtles off the Paraná coast. Her main research interests are population and behavioral ecology, and she loves working in the ocean.

Kyra Bankhead,

2022-2024

MSc student, Wildlife Sciences, Oregon State University, USA

Supervisor: Mauricio Cantor

Collaborators: Dr. Randall Wells, Dr. Katie McHugh, Dr. Sonja Wild

MSc dissertation:  The diffusion dynamics of human-induced food provisioning among bottlenose dolphins.
What is she up to? I received my Bachelor's degree with a marine emphasis at Western Washington University, where I worked in Dr. Acevedo-Gutierrez’s Marine Mammal Ecology lab.There, I developed a research project that monitored the responses of two Washington coast harbor seal populations to anthropogenic noise disturbance. I developed an immense interest in marine mammal behavioral ecology, and started researching cultural transmission in cetaceans where I came across many of Dr. Cantor’s papers. Thereafter, I obtained my current position in Dr. Cantor’s Lab for Animal Behavioral Interaction Research in the Ocean, and am currently investigating the spreading dynamics of human-induced food provisioning on Sarasota dolphins. The major goal of my study is to identify the mechanism by which key individual dolphins spread the begging behavior in Sarasota to help stop the conditioning of dolphins to direct and indirect provisioning by humans. Apart from the lab, I spend my time outside, specifically at the beach swimming and diving!

Mahmud Rahman,

2023-2025

MSc student, Wildlife Sciences, Oregon State University, USA

Supervisor: Mauricio Cantor

Collaborators: Dr. Jennifer Lewis

MSc dissertation:  Risk-taking behavior among bottlenose dolphins: individual variation and social influence 
What is he up to? Mahmud is an international M.Sc. student, coming from a riverine country Bangladesh where the largest population of Ganges River dolphins live. He has a bachelor degree in Fisheries and became interested in dolphins while working with Wildlife Conservation Society. His primary job was building a citizen science fishermen network to collect data on by-catch of cetaceans (e.g., Ganges River dolphins, Irrawaddy dolphins, Humpback dolphins). Being passionate about electronics, programming, and behavioral ecology, he realized that advanced technology can be used to research mapping behavioral networks. This excites him the most and has pushed him to pursue an M.Sc. in the Labirinto lab. His research will be investigating risk taking dolphins in a residential bottlenose population in the Florida Keys and their influence on other dolphins.

Kiera McGarvey Sears,

2022

MSc student at University College Cork, Ireland; visiting student at Oregon State University, USA

Supervisors: Mauricio Cantor, Dr. Emer Rogan

Collaborators: Dr. Fabio Daura-Jorge, Alexandre MS Machado

MSc dissertation: Parallel Lives: Do bottlenose dolphins cooperate amongst themselves when foraging with artisanal net-casting fishers?
What is she up to? Kiera has studied the fine-scale foraging co​ordination among bottlenose dolphins that interact with artisanal net-casting fishers in Laguna, southern Brazil, and investigated whether this foraging tactic represents a case of social predation for the dolphins. She quantified the degree to which groups of dolphins coordinate their actions during their interactions with the artisanal fishers, by measuring the cohesion, heading, and breathing synchrony of dolphin groups of different sizes in aerial drone footage of the interaction. Kiera was a visiting MSc student from the University College Cork, and carried out her MSc research at the Marine Mammal Institute, Newport OR. She successfully defended her thesis in August 2022.