Taylor Hersh

I consider myself a bioacoustician and have a variety of research interests, including:

• The adaptive and functional value of rhythm in communication systems
• Animal culture
• Dialect evolution
• Methods for call classification and clustering
• The interplay between vocal and social complexity

My work spans a diversity of species and study systems, including sperm whales, African penguins, domestic dogs, Java sparrows, and harbour seals. I am always open to new collaborations and can be reached at taylor.hersh [at] mpi.nl.

I have a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) and a Ph.D. in Biology from Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). My Ph.D. thesis focused on spatial and temporal variation in sperm whale social communication. I joined the Comparative Bioacoustics Group in August 2021 as a Research Project Coordinator and became a Postdoctoral Researcher in the group in June 2022.