Léa Bouffaut, Ph.D.

How to utilize passive acoustic recordings conservation-oriented marine research? With a background at the intersection of physical acoustics and signal processing, I have steered my research to investigate this question. My interests include the following themes:

• Automatic detection and classification of marine mammal signals;
• Adapting opportunistic and innovative acoustic sensing methods for cetacean monitoring, such as telecommunication fiber optic cable converted into large scale distributed acoustic sensing arrays;
• Contextualizing acoustic recordings using multi-sensory biologging platforms, data overlay, and data visualization;
• Using physical acoustics to squeeze behavior-relevant information from single sensors such as 3D localization and source level estimation.

I conducted my Ph.D. in underwater acoustics and signal processing at the École Navale, co-advised by Pr. Abdel Boudraa and Dr. Valérie Labat, and awarded in 2019. It focused on the detection and classification of stereotyped blue whale signals recorded by ocean bottom seismometers in the Indian Ocean. During that time, I visited the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics for a 3-month research stay (financed by the École Navale and GdR ISIS). Our collaborative work received the IEEE OES Norman Miller Award, and I received the Fondation de la Mer Award for my Ph.D. work. I recently completed a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at NTNU, Norway, where I focused on distributed acoustic sensing and biologging for baleen whales in the Arctic.

As a postdoctoral associate at the Yang Center, my main project focuses on developing AI algorithms to identify marine mammal vocal activities.