Hannah Clayton Nolte is a Bioacoustics Analyst whose research interests primarily lie in bridging the gap between baleen whale vocalizations and their behavior. She serves as an analyst for a number of acoustics-focused projects along the West Coast including OSA’s OOI Marine Mammal Ecological Study. During her career she has developed skills applicable to the bioacoustics field including the identification of marine mammal vocalizations gathered via static hydrophones or placed tags, statistical analysis of call characteristics using custom-written R or MATLAB functions, and experience in hardware configuration and deployment. She has a soft spot for humpbacks and is currently involved in research aimed at understanding the context during which they produce social calls using audio and accelerometry data from suction-placed CATS tags.

Prior to deciding to work with marine mammals (the second time-as all women want to work with dolphins at some point in their childhood) she served as a combat medic in the U.S. Army. Enlisting at 18, she spent four years on active duty completing one deployment to Afghanistan before joining the Army Reserve, which she is still a part of today. Hannah received her B.S. in Environmental Science from American Military University and got her start in biological sciences through habitat restoration and forage fish surveying as part of AmeriCorps’s Washington Conservation Corps.

Outside of listening to whales, Hannah enjoys exploring the intertidal areas of the Salish Sea, anything to do with Star Wars or cosplaying, and spending time with her husband and three pups.  

Contact Hannah: [email protected]