Current Activities

Phil Clapham is the leader of the Cetacean Assessment and Ecology Program at the National Marine Mammal Lab. Phil oversees the lab's work on all cetaceans, but his primary research interests relate to the population biology, behavioral ecology and conservation management of large whales. He has almost three decades of research experience, and at one time or another has worked with most species of whales in various places worldwide. He is particularly interested in research that crosses scientific disciplines, and in fostering geographically large-scale assessment studies.

Background

Prior to his current position, Phil directed large whale research at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He remains associated with the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History) in Washington D.C., and for many years he directed a long-term study of individually identified humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine.

Phil holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), and has advised several governments and other bodies on whale research and conservation. He is a former member of the Board of Governors and Associate Editor of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, and since 1997 has been on the U.S. delegation to the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee. Phil has published four books and about a hundred peer-reviewed papers on whales and other cetaceans, and currently serves as an editor for Mammal Review as well as for the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters.