I learned about this course through taking Mammalogy with Professor May-Collado last semester, and was intrigued by such a unique opportunity. It sounded like the perfect way to get involved with undergraduate research, analyze unique and important data, and gain valuable data analysis, scientific writing, and presentation skills. I had worked with pantropical spotted dolphin data for a mammalogy project, so I had already been exposed to the Raven Pro software and some of the work being done in Laura’s lab. After learning about this course, however, I was eager to gain more exposure to acoustic technology and soundscape research. I knew it was going to be a challenge, since I had no previous exposure to undergraduate research, and being in the middle of pandemic certainly was not going to help, but I was eager to get started.
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As it turns out, the pandemic presented a unique research opportunity to explore the extent of human activity on many different aspects of the natural world. As we learned firsthand this semester, soundscape analysis was a particularly valuable resource in determining the effects of anthropogenic noise on aquatic ecosystems. I decided to focus my research on the Bocon Toadfish in Almirante Bay, Panama. The bay was an ideal study site because it usually experiences regular boat traffic between 6 am and 6 pm, but due to COVID there was significantly less travel. I obtained the sound recordings from Arbimon RFCx from five days before the pandemic started and 5 days after quarantining began towards the height of the pandemic. This process was my first real exposure gathering and analyzing scientific data, and I definitely made some mistakes along the way, but I was always able to ask Dr. May-Collado and her amazing grad students, Emma and Maia, for guidance. In the end, I found that toadfish calls during the pandemic exhibited much greater variation, especially in the afternoons when boat activity is usually at its peak. This indicates that they had a wider acoustic space to operate within, allowing for more diverse calls. This project was just one of many analyzing the effects of the pandemic on different marine species and ecosystems, thanks to the passive acoustic monitoring data Dr. May-Collado has been collecting for years. I feel so honored to have been able to take part in an experience like this and be one of the first people to tackle these findings. I was thoroughly challenged by this process, but the structure of the course and Laura’s deadlines helped make the production of my final manuscript manageable. I greatly look forward to being able to continue this research in the future, and would recommend this course to anyone interested in marine research!

I met Dr. Laura May-Collado my first year at UVM. After meeting with her, we planned the courses I could take to learn more about marine ecosystems. With her help I created a minor for marine science. I have taken almost every class Laura teaches and so far, this has been my absolute favorite. Knowing a little about her research and having had some experience in her lab prior to the class I was so excited to create a research project of my own in the soundscapes class. By listening and analyzing underwater recordings obtained through autonomous recorders, I investigated the soundscapes in protected areas and unprotected areas in an effort to determine the success of marine protections in the preservation of biodiversity. With Laura’s help I developed my research and produced a manuscript on over the course of the semester. Though the process was challenging, and I was nervous to do this independently, it was the most satisfying class I have ever taken.
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My research into the biodiversity and acoustic levels of Panama and Costa Rica was an interesting topic, I got to listen to so many different acoustic files and an abundance of organisms. I was able to determine that Marine protected areas have higher acoustic levels than unprotected areas. And since this research was done during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is some of the first of its kind, so the results are intriguing. I hope to continue this research in the fall and hopefully explore something similar in the future.
The experience I had in this class not only let me develop my own research and a manuscript, but I learned so much about writing in science, conducting research, and collaborating with other scientists. This course was the closest experience I’ve ever had to what being in research is like and with Laura’s guidance, it was incredibly satisfying work. I would recommend this class to anyone and everyone interested in research! 

I have had great interest in the CURE program and research into marine mammals since my involvement with the Scarsdale High School Science Research program and the two summers I spent in Belize participating in data collection for bottlenose dolphins, funnily enough under a graduate student who turned out to be a former CURE member himself, I have sought out similar programs in a university setting.  Due to my past high school science research experience, I had previous knowledge of Dr. Laura J. May-Collado’s research and was incredibly excited to participate in a course with her as our professor and mentor.  As a graduating senior this kind of hands-on research perfect for developing skills and gaining experience to seek employment after university.  This was further assisted with knowledge of what kind of work we can actually find on the field side and what networks currently exist to support it.

​For my study we focused on classifying and cataloguing the parameters of vocalizations of the False Killer Whale population in El Salvador, a previously unstudied population for a species that little is known about.  This data was from opportunistic collection in El Salvador between 2018 and 2019.  This research was conducted using RAVEN and then analyzed for a variety of frequency parameters and duration parameters. COVID has changed the board when it comes to opportunities, with the collapse of tourism due to the travel restrictions globally, many opportunities were opened or complicated.  Unfortunately for this specific project, COVID-19 likely contributed to the complete lack of data for 2020.  However, the majority of this work being digital analysis of vocalizations meant thankfully the worst of the issues related to social distancing did not affect this course or my research.  All in all, we still managed to develop an incredibly strong probability of differences between vocalization types and succeeded at our goals in full.   

Data collected in this study will be utilized in the future for algorithms meant to classify vocalizations, and this data may be usable in reference to pre-existing population parameters in the Hawaiian and captive populations.  As a graduating senior I am currently seeking further employment in this field and work related to this study will likely play a major role in my ability to find work in the research field.  It also has contributed to my ability and knowledge in performing statistical analysis and conducting research in general.  I hope to conduct work like this in the future, or barring that, to be on the data-collection side of these studies.  Regardless of what the future holds, I think this program has helped prepare me far better for both knowing what is expected of me and knowing how to achieve those expectations in a research setting.  Professor May-Collado is a pleasure to work with and the CURE program is an amazing way to develop skills you otherwise may struggle to find elsewhere.  If you have a passion for marine biology or conservation related research, I cannot recommend this program enough.  

This is the first chance I have gotten to sit back to reflect on this past year and think about what I’m able to take away. I’m sure we can all agree that this past year has been anything but ordinary. We have all just lived through modern mankind’s worst natural disaster yet we were all expected to conduct our lives to usual business. What a headache it was! But here we are, we did it!
 
As an AT-HOME student many of my courses this past year were structured as “flipped-learning” meaning it was up to me to utilize online resources to more or less teach myself advanced topics. It is programs such as CURE which added a twist to standardized educational methods that I find myself really able to take away big conclusions. For the first time in my college career I was able to put focus into a topic that isn’t only definitions and troubleshooting; a topic that not only just interested me but is extremely present and applicable to now and the future.
 
I am very lucky to have been given this opportunity. Never before has circumstances presented themselves for a modern global comparative study significantly absent of mankind’s pollution. Not only has the truth been uncovered but perspectives for change are at an all-time high. Overall, my study provided insight on the impact of human presence on humpback whale singing behavior while adding to a better understanding of the impact mankind's pollution has on marine life. Our results highlight the impact boat traffic can have in the ocean's acoustic space. However, the results collected do not seem to only be directly related to boat presence…
 
“Within a few weeks into the pandemic, media worldwide broadcasted news related to higher water quality, (Braga et al. 2020) and CO2 emissions, expected to fall (Le Quéré et al.,2020) to a level roughly equivalent to the annual emission reductions needed to limit in alignment with the Paris Agreements.”
 
The question of debate regarding climate change should no longer be believers versus non-believers. The data is here... and it turns out we ARE the problem. But because it is likely man-kind will return to our neglectful polluting there may be no long term benefits from this unprecedented research. However, we definitely have a lot to learn this time is history. It is my hope that this type of attention will bring upon a perspective with a desire to find the collective solution to mother nature’s rehabilitation.
 
I would definitely recommend CURE to all undergraduate students that agree that typical test grades do not necessarily measure one’s intelligence. This course allows individuals to explore educational media independently tailored to the way it makes sense to them. Dr. Laura J May-Collado was there every step of the way ensuring accuracy in our scientific methods, allowing us to focus on our topic of interest.

As a third year Biological Science major, this academic year has felt like the first where I could really explore my interests outside of larger introductory chem and bio classes. When I came across this CURE course in the schedule of courses, it immediately piqued my interest and I knew it would be a great learning experience to broaden and diversify my typical course load. Having no real research experience prior, CURE provided me with a great opportunity to have exposure to the field through course-based research under the guidance of Dr. Laura May-Collado, who could not have been a more helpful and enthusiastic mentor and collaborator.
 
Doing this course under restrictions as to how we were able to meet as a class was a little challenging; I would have loved to work altogether more in person, but despite these circumstances, Dr. May-Collado made sure we all stayed engaged with her and our research whether that was online or through individual meetings in the lab with her. Covid-19 also allowed most of our projects to be based on changes in marine communities due to the unusual circumstances the pandemic provided. My research looked into how covid-19 restrictions changed the contribution of anthropogenic noise to the marine soundscape of sites in Coiba National Park, Panama. I thought it was so cool to look at data collected from so far away, and use it to not only better understand the marine communities there, but also better understand the impact human activity can have on marine communities.
 
Overall, this class was an incredible learning experience that made me more confident in skills I already had, but also taught me many new skills I can apply to further academic and personal experiences. Being able to go through the whole process of deciding a research question, doing the research itself, making conclusions, and formulating it all into a complete manuscript was something I had not done to this extent before, and I found it both informative and exciting to do with Dr. May-Collado’s help! If you are someone who wants a meaningful class that will help you gain scientific and personal skills and introduce you to what research looks like in and out of an undergraduate setting, I highly recommend this course!

Hi my name is Briana and I am a sophomore biology major with a wildlife biology minor. In the Fall semester of 2020, I helped professor Laura May-Collado by sorting through humpback whale data. She recommended this class to me which gave me the opportunity to do my own research. I had really wanted to dip my toes into research to see if it was something I enjoyed or not and wanted to learn more about how scientists did their research. This class made undergraduate research less intimidating and is a good stepping stone for research in the future.

During covid this past year, it was very strange working from home but I was glad I could still participate in research. For my research I investigated how the acoustic structure of humpback whale songs changed before and after the pandemic due to boat traffic. Some of my main struggles while doing this project was issues with WIFI causing programs to run slowly. During the project I was also a bit nervous if I was running on time to get my project done; although I later realized I was ahead of my project. If I were to go into this project again I would have asked more questions in the beginning stages of my project so I was comfortable with the timeline of the project. I also would have worried less about grades and focused on the learning experience. Once my data was collected, analyzing data was very rewarding. It was fun to analyze data and see the results of my hard work. I also found the presentation of my study to be fun and it made me feel like a real researcher.
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Overall, this was a very informative class that furthered my confidence in my own abilities as well as taught me about the scientific process. Writing a report in a regular class is not the same as writing a manuscript so it was good for me to experience this. This class also taught me about the reality of doing research and the importance of keeping on schedule for deadlines. I think this class has opened up opportunities for me to continue doing research and inspired me to do more research projects in the future. 

 
I wanted to gain real research experience beyond the scope of what labs and classes could offer, and when I heard about the CURE course in my Mammalogy class I knew this was the perfect opportunity! I had some experience with bioacoustics research prior to this course, but the opportunity to evaluate new data and try new tools proved to be invaluable. This course provides an unrivaled opportunity to practice scientific writing, data analysis, and presentation skills that could result in a publishable paper and benefit real-world issues. CURE is one of the most beneficial courses anyone could take who is hoping to enter the scientific field.
 
In a time when Covid-19 related restrictions were limiting opportunities for field work, our work this semester provided the unique chance to study how these conditions had influenced marine life. I was able to research the question of whether marine protected areas in Panama were adequately preserving biodiversity by comparing the biological noise levels of protected and non-protected areas in Panama from recordings taken in 2020. My hypothesis was that if marine protected areas were preserving biodiversity, they would have higher biological noise levels than non-protected areas. I was able to select recordings from two protected sites in Coiba National Park and two non-protected sites in Islas Secas using tools from Arbimon RFCx. Once these files were selected, we were able to use a program called dBWave to measure noise levels for each location and compare them. We discovered that the non-protected areas actually had higher levels of biological noise than the protected areas! These results implicate the need for further investigation to determine whether human activities should be further mitigated in marine protected areas. The higher noise levels in non-protected areas were unlikely to be a result of boat noise given the pandemic restrictions on outdoor recreation and travel. The high noise levels could have been attributed to vocalizations made by humpback whales, but if this is the case their abundance in non-protected areas could warrant increased protections in those areas.
 
These results were significant enough to warrant further investigation into the effectiveness of marine protected areas in Panama, especially considering that Panama has been issued sanctions in the past for not effectively regulating its illegal fishing activity. This has opened the opportunity for me to continue working on this project with Dr. May-Collado and another student who conducted a similar analysis. I am hoping that our combined work will result in a paper that can be published and benefit the conservation efforts of the country. This is one of the most valuable takeaways from this course; the chance to conduct work that has the potential to benefit not only you and your skills as a researcher, but to actively contribute to real-world conservation efforts. Dr. May-Collado is an excellent mentor who will guide you through your research efforts and inevitable pitfalls. You will experience the frustrations and tediousness of working with an expansive dataset and the pride of creating a professional final product. If you have any interest in research, this class will be invaluable in honing the skills you will need in a job or while completing a Master’s or PhD project. I cannot recommend this course highly enough! 

 
I found out about CURE during an Animal Rescue meeting. I have always been interested in marine animals and their behavior. However, I did not think I would be able to learn about them when I came to UVM. I also knew I wanted to get involved with research at some point but nothing was standing out to me yet. When I was made aware of this opportunity, I knew I had to do it. I was anxious about the whole experience because prior to CURE I had no other research exposure. However, Dr. May-Collado is an amazing professor and took me under her wing.
 
CURE is an amazing experience for any student who has an interest in marine animals and research. Through this course, I was taught how to analyze data on RavenPro which was not
something I have done before. Although it was confusing at first, Dr. May-Collado was very patient and taught me how it worked. Also, since I was working on this project on my own I had plenty of questions and Dr. May-Collado was always there for help. 
 
This spring, I worked on a project on coastal pantropical spotted dolphins whistle acoustic structure and how that relates to their geographical location. For this research, whistles were recorded from five different countries in Central America including Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica. All of the whistles were manually selected on Raven and many different parameters were extracted. By using these parameters, we were able to see how the whistles varied in each region. We found that dolphin whistles varied significantly between locations.
 
I enjoyed my time working in the lab and learning how to write a research paper. This fall I will be continuing this project with Dr. May-Collado and her other collaborators to determine why the whistles varied among countries. The goal for this research is publication as well which I never thought I would be able to be a part of!
 
I recommend this course highly and cannot wait to get back to work this fall! 

I was looking to get involved in undergraduate research and stumbled across this course when looking through all the biology department offerings. I didn’t have any experience with marine biology research prior to this course, but I had taken another class with Dr. May-Collado and so decided to give it a try. I am so glad I did! This past semester was an amazing experience and helped me to develop and sharpen my research skills, improve my scientific writing, and become a more comfortable scientific presenter.
 
CURE is really an incredible opportunity for any undergraduate student looking to develop and work independently on a research project. Dr. May-Collado was always there to help and answer any questions that came up along the way. From developing a hypothesis and writing a research proposal, to collecting and analyzing data in new and exciting statistical programs, and finally to interpreting and presenting our findings, Dr. May-Collado was there to guide us all along and nudge us in the right direction whenever we needed it. 
 
This semester I had the unique opportunity of looking at the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns and regulations on the noise levels of a marine community. I focused my research on the Caño Island, Costa Rica, a protected area and an important breeding ground for migratory populations of pacific humpback whales. Using sound recordings from 2019 and 2020, I was able to analyze the noise levels pre- and during lockdowns using the program dBWAV. We found that while overall noise levels decreased during lockdowns due to a lower human and boat presence, humpback whale communicative space and singing contribution to the soundscape increased!
 
I will be continuing to work with Dr. May-Collado and a couple other CURE students as we hope to publish our findings on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on humpback whale behavior and singing activity. We also plan to present our results at the Marine Mammal Conference in December of 2021. I would have never thought I would have the opportunity to be part of publishable biology research as an undergraduate student, or present at such a major research conference, and I am so thankful for the opportunities CURE has provided me!
 
If you have the opportunity to take CURE or get involved in Dr. May-Collado’s lab, I strongly encourage you to do so. Laura is an awesome mentor and her passion for marine biology research is contagious. Highly recommend!

I stumbled across the Soundscapes and Behavioral Research CURE program the fall of my Junior year as I was registering for classes. My roommate was looking for a class relating to marine biology and we decided to take this course together. I had spent the previous summer doing field research on Humpback whales in Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts and realized this could be a perfect extension to that work. Nonetheless, I had no idea how much I would have the opportunity to learn through this program and that it would quickly become the most impactful course I took during my undergraduate studies.
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Taking this class during the Covid-19 pandemic was nothing short of a blessing. Because of the unique opportunity the regulations of the pandemic provided on boating regulations, I was able to research under remarkable circumstances. For my project, I looked at how Humpback whale singing activity in Jardin, Caño Island, Costa Rica was impacted by reduced boat noise pollution under Covid-19 restrictions. I was able to compare the presence versus absence of boat noise and whale singing activity during a normal season-- September, 2019-- and during Covid-19 --September, 2020-- through Arbimon RFCx. It was so cool being able to both hear and see what a Humpback song looks like and also how intense boat noises are.
Singing is an activity typically performed by Humpback males to attract mates and compete with other males. Caño Island is an important breeding ground for Humpbacks and the research showed that Humpback breeding behavior could be negatively impacted by boat noise. It will be exciting to see if more calves are present in Caño Island next year and if the lack of boat noise in the breeding ground contributed to a positive outcome for Humpback breeding.

Because I obtained significant and unique data, I was offered a research position to continue working with Prof. May-Collado and two other students. I hope to be a co-author of a published paper by the end of this project, which is something I never dreamed I would do during my undergraduate experience. I am so grateful for this class because it provided me with scientific research skills in a safe yet challenging setting. I grew both as a researcher and as a scientific writer; I would highly recommend this course to anyone interested in expanding their skills in scientific research or in learning more about acoustic soundscapes. You will be guided through the process of writing a scientific paper while analyzing a unique subset of data. Laura is an incredible mentor. She sets specific deadlines which makes the work manageable, but also pushes students. I was challenged in this course in the best way and learned so much. Take this class!