Sharon Martinson
Postdoctoral Fellow
Expertise
New England Birds • Tropical Katydids • Passive Acoustic Monitoring • Theoretical Ecology • Population Ecology
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 have worked in bioacoustics for nearly a decade before coming the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. My research focused on the 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.
Before joining the Cornell Lab, I led the acoustic research program, The Listening Lab, at Colorado State University. There, I collaborated with teams of students to investigate the effects of noise pollution on natural soundscapes within National Parks across the United States. My Ph.D. at Dartmouth College centered on plant-insect interactions, using population ecology to explore the relationships between plant defenses and tree-killing bark beetles in the southeastern United States. For my first postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I studied how climate change affects plant communities in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains.
In addition to my academic pursuits, I spent 12 years as a touring musician, serving as the founder, banjo player, and songwriter for The Littlest Birds. During this period, I also maintained active research projects, including part-time work with the USDA studying wood wasps in Argentina and conducting bioacoustic studies on tropical katydids in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Education
Ph.D., Dartmouth College
B.S., Keene State College
