Whale Habitat, Ecology & Telemetry Lab

Dr. Daniel Palacios is the lead of the Whale Habitat, Ecology & Telemetry Laboratory (WHET Lab) at the Marine Mammal Institute (MMI). His current research interests are in:

• Quantitative ecology and habitat modeling
• Analysis and visualization of telemetry and bio-logging data
• Characterization of critical habitat for large whales
• Study of long-distance migration and navigation in whales

Dr. Palacios's background is in oceanography, with a primary focus on understanding the environmental factors that influence the ecology of marine megafauna in pelagic ecosystems. Prior to joining the MMI faculty in 2013, Dr. Palacios worked for 10 years at NOAA’s Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory as a member of the Tagging of Pelagic Predators (TOPP) program. As part of this program, from 2004 to 2012 he participated in multi-disciplinary projects studying the movements and habitat associations of blue and humpback whales, elephant seals, Hawaiian albatrosses, leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles, and white sharks using electronic tags and remote sensing. His postdoctoral research in 2003-2004 was also at NOAA’s Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory, where he focused on describing interannual-to-decadal variations in the climate of the California Current System. For his 2003 Ph.D. dissertation at Oregon State University he studied the community ecology of cetaceans inhabiting the waters around the Galápagos Islands based on data collected during a year-long expedition to this archipelago in 1993-1994, while working with the Ocean Alliance. His 1994 B.Sc. thesis from Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Colombia was on the population status and breeding ecology of a seabird colony in the Caribbean Sea.

Hailing from Colombia, Dr. Palacios remains actively involved in promoting research and science advancement in Latin America as an active member of both the Sociedad Latinoamericana de Especialistas en Mamíferos Acuáticos (SOLAMAC) and the Sociedad Mexicana de Mastozoología Marina (SOMEMMA).

Please click on the My Publications tab to view Dr. Palacios's publications and intellectual contributions. For citation indices and article-level metrics, visit Dr. Palacios's Google Scholar Citations Profile.

If you are interested in joining the WHET Lab as an undergraduate intern, graduate student, or postdoc, please read Dr. Palacios's guidance in his Letter to Prospective Applicants.