Kaitlin Palmer

Senior Research Scientist (NA)

Email: kjp@smruconsulting.com

Kaitlin brings to the team ten years of experience studying all aspects of conservation acoustics ranging from animal communication to propagation modelling to neural network detectors and statistical modelling. Kaitlin has completed degrees in biology and engineering from College of the Atlantic, Penn State, and the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the St Andrews, Scotland. Following her PhD she worked as a post-doctoral fellow in machine learning at San Diego State University. Kaitlin’s interests include fully leveraging imperfect datasets through the use of a broad array of statistical tools and algorithms. In her spare time Kaitlin enjoys a variety of mountain sports, figure skating, and making bioacoustics recordings in her own back yard.

  • Degrees and Education

    • BA, College of the Atlantic

    • Masters of Engineering, Penn State

    • PhD University of St. Andrews

    • Post Doc San Diego State University

    Skills and Expertise

    Detection and Classification, Neural Networks, Passive Acoustic Monitoring, Bayesian Statistics, Habitat modelling

  • Palmer, K. J., Tabbutt, S., Gillespie, D., Turner, J., King, P., Tollit, D., Thompson, J., & Wood, J. (2022). Evaluation of a coastal acoustic buoy for cetacean detections, bearing accuracy and exclusion zone monitoring. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 00, 1– 12. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13973

    Angadi, K., Wood, J., Turner, J., Palmer K., & Tollit, D. (2020) Burrard Inlet Underwater Noise Characterization: 2019 Final Report. SMRU Consulting North America. https://www.portvancouver.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Burrard-Inlet-2019-Year-1-Final-Report-with-framing-document.pdf

    P Li, P., Liua, X., Palmer, K.J., Fleishman, E., Gillespie, D., Nosal, E.M., Shiu, Y., (2020). Learning Deep Models from Synthetic Data for Extracting Dolphin Whistle Contours, arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.08894

    Shiu, Y., Palmer, K.J., Roch, M., Fleishman, E., Liu, X., Nosal, E., Helble, T., Cholewiak, D., Gillespie, D. and Klinck, H., (2020). Publisher Correction: Deep neural networks for automated detection of marine mammal species. Scientific Reports, 10(1).

    Lostanlen, V., Palmer, K.J., (2019). Long-Distance Detection of Bioacoustic Events with Per-Channel Energy Normalization. Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events (DCASE) workshop

    Palmer, K.J., Brookes, K.L., Davies, I.M., Edwards, E., Rendell, L., (2019) Habitat use of a coastal delphinid population investigated using passive acoustic monitoring. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 29, pp254-270

    Li, P., Liu, X., Fleishman, E., Palmer, K.J., Shiu, Y., Klinck, H., Helble T.A., (2019) Deep whistle contour: Recall-guided learning from synthesis. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146 (4), 2984-2985

    Palmer, K.J., Helble, T.A., Nosal, E.M., Lerley, G., Fleishman, E., Shiu, Y., Liu, X., (2019) Use of spatial context to increase acoustic classification accuracy. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146 (4), 2983-2983

    Roch, M.A., Baumann-Pickering, S., Cholewiak, D., Fleishman, E., Frasier K.E., (2018) The use of context in machine learning for bioacoustics. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144 (3), 1728-1728

    Palmer, K.J., Brookes, K.L., Rendell, L., (2017) Assessing the effects of noise masking and transmission loss on dolphin occupancy rates reported by echolocation click loggers deployed on the eastern Scottish coast. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 141 (5), 3604-3604

    Rice, A., Palmer, K.J., Tielens, J., Muirhead, C. and Clark, C., (2014). Potential Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni) calls recorded in the northern Gulf of Mexico, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 135(5), pp.3066-3076.

    Palmer, K.J., Parks, S.E., Wiley, D., Weinrich, W., Tackaberry, J., Bocconcelli, A., (2010). Vocal behavior of North Atlantic humpback whales during reunion events on Stellwagen Bank. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 127 (3), 1894-1894

  • Key Projects

    • Developing the Coastal Acoustic Buoy (CAB) for marine mitigation work.

    • Commercial vessel noise monitoring and mitigation assessments for the Port of Vancouver’s ECHO program, including the summer 2017 Haro Strait voluntary vessel slow down trial.

    • Environmental Effects Monitoring Program for FORCE at a tidal turbine demonstration site in the Bay of Fundy

    • A simple detection and classification algorithm for Southern Resident and Biggs killer whales using freely available software (PAMGuard)

  • Phone: +1 (604) 737-7678

    Email: kjp@smruconsulting.com

    Mail: Scottish Oceans Institute

    East Sands

    University of St Andrews

    KY16 8LB

    Scotland