Smithsonian Exhibit Showcases Work by Marine Lab's Ari Friedlaender
As a child, Ari Friedlaender loved visiting aquariums and museums. But he never imagined that one day his own work would be on display at one of the best known museums in the world.
Friedlaender, an assistant research scientist at the Nicholas School, is one of many scientists whose contributions make up the exhibits in the new Sant Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The hall opened to the public in the fall. His photographs from the Behavioral Response Study (BRS), a multinational research initiative studying the effects of underwater noise on beaked whales, appear in an “Ocean Today” kiosk in the new, 3,000-square-foot hall. The kiosks show details about current and ongoing research in the world’s oceans.
“I think these types of displays are able to portray research that’s being done in a way that a magazine or a publication can’t,” says Friedlaender, who is based at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, N.C. “It’s a good way to educate the public who wouldn’t have easy access to the information if we only published it in academic journals.”
Friedlander’s BRS colleagues include researchers from the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization, St. Andrews University in Scotland and the U.S. Navy. They are working with scientists and conservationists around the world to try and understand more about the behaviors and critical habitats of beaked whales. Fellow Nicholas School researchers Doug Nowacek, Elliot Hazen and Pat Halpin are working with the BRS team to create habitat models that will help with the study of whale diving patterns and prey distributions. Once these models are in place, scientists hope they will be able to decipher more about what is actually happening with
the whales.
