Marie-Ève Clark

I am a marine biologist, currently investigating the detection performance of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for at-risk baleen whale species in the St. Lawrence Estuary (Québec, Canada) and how it could support conservation and threat-mitigation efforts both within and beyond the project’s area. My Master’s research is co-supervised by Dr. Léa Bouffaut of the Yang Center, and Dr. Pierre Cauchy of the Institut des sciences de la mer (ISMER) at Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR).

I first became involved in marine mammal research with the Whitehead Lab at Dalhousie University, participating in missions to collect acoustic, photo-identification, and behavioural data from sperm whales in the Caribbean and endangered Northern bottlenose whales in the Gully. I then spent several years working in the applied research and innovation sector for a non-profit organization in Eastern Canada, where I focused on using technologies to mitigate the impacts of human activities on marine life. Among many projects, I contributed to ghost-gear detection and retrieval initiatives to help reduce entanglement risks for North Atlantic right whales (NARW) and worked on integrating a PAM and infrared thermal camera system into the marine mammal monitoring and mitigation program for coastal operations.

In 2023, I was introduced to DAS for marine mammal detection through a webinar given by Léa Bouffaut. This immediately sparked my interest and led to the development of our project “Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for the monitoring of endangered baleen whales in the St. Lawrence Estuary” funded by NSERC Alliance Society (started in Feb., 2025). Through this project, I am now back in academia to pursue my graduate studies. My long-term ambition is to help make DAS technology a practical tool for real-time whale monitoring and dynamic mitigation (e.g. for the NARW), and to support its integration within existing management frameworks.

In my free time, I enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons, snorkeling in (too) cold water, playing music, and hiking.