Sharon Martinson, Ph.D.

I am an ecologist with a wide range of experiences, having worked in a variety of ecosystems. I am currently using the lens of bioacoustics to study patterns of New England bird populations for the National Park Service. I am a newly minted ornithologist, but for nearly a decade before coming the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, my research focused on the bioacoustics of amazingly diverse tropical katydids, primarily in Panama. All of my bioacoustics projects have used passive acoustic monitoring, as well as on-the-ground methods of studying singing birds and insects. I also worked at Colorado State University, directing their acoustic research program, The Listening Lab, working with teams of students to understand the impacts of noise pollution in National Parks throughout the United States.  

My initial work focused on plant-insect interactions, using population ecology to untangle patterns of plant defenses and tree-killing bark beetles, working in the southeastern United States. A similar project on wood wasps, which also kill trees, moved me to the southern hemisphere, with fields sites in Argentina. Additionally, for several years I was part of a team studying the effects of climate change on plant communities in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains in the United States.  

My research world and creative music career have always complemented each other, but with my current research in bioacoustics, they are more closely linked. I have spent over a decade mixing science and music, playing banjo, performing, and touring across the Americas, Europe, and the UK, and recording and releasing four albums. My musical band name and nom de plume is The Littlest Birds. In real life, the littlest bird is the Bee Hummingbird, found only in Cuba, where I have yet to perform, lest we compete for which of us is the very littlest, or which has a sweeter song.  

I enjoy woodworking and beekeeping. I live in Wyoming and actually like the wind and the winter. To relax, I like to garden, nordic skate ski, make music with friends, cook, chop firewood and read by the fire, and listen to LP records from the 1970’s. Hanging laundry out to dry is my favorite chore.