OVERVIEW 

Tiffany is a PhD student from Singapore. She moved to Ireland in 2021 and is part of the Marine Ecology Group at MaREI. Her research interests involve investigating the impacts of environmental changes on the survival of marine mammal populations and how these animals may respond to those changes. Tiffany’s project is part of the ObSERVE programme and she will be using aerial survey data to assess the distribution and abundance of cetaceans in Irish waters. 

CURRENT ACTIVITIES

ObSERVE Phase II

BACKGROUND

In 2013, Tiffany left her full-time laboratory technician job at the S.E.A. Aquarium Singapore and spent 6 months as a volunteer in marine conservation research in the Philippines. During this time, she gained knowledge and field experience in coral, seagrass and whale shark research.

After her voluntary experience, Tiffany undertook a BSc (Hons) in Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth and graduated in 2017. She achieved a first-class grade for her honours project investigating the influence of bathymetry on sperm whale distribution off the west coast of Scotland using passive acoustic data. Following this, Tiffany achieved a MSc in Marine Mammal Science at the University of St Andrews with Merit in 2019. During her Master’s degree, she participated in visual and acoustic surveys for marine mammals along the east and west coast of Scotland and also had the opportunity to join a research expedition trip to Antarctica. Tiffany was also a research assistant for the Norwegian Orca Survey, where she assisted in collecting and processing photo-IDs and biopsies of killer whales for population studies and diet analysis. She received a Merit for her dissertation project investigating whether changes in the abundance and distribution of Norwegian spring-spawning herring had an impact on killer whale survival in northern Norway.

Tiffany continues to pursue her passion in marine mammal research in Ireland hoping to identify important areas for cetaceans and to better understand the impacts of ecosystem changes on their distribution and abundance.