Past NIMBioS Postdoctoral Fellow
Arik Kershenbaum
Dates: August 2012 – August 2014
Personal website
Twitter: @arikkershenbaum
Project Title: Extracting contextual information from vocalization syntax in dolphins and whales
Arik Kershenbaum (Ph.D. Biology, Univ. of Haifa, 2012) analyzes dolphin and whale vocalizations to identify significant syntactic trends to relate them to behavioral and environmental cues.
Upon completing his fellowship at NIMBioS, Dr. Kershenbaum accepted a position as Herchel Smith Research Fellow in the department of Zoology at
the University of Cambridge.
He has written a book,
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves,
using his expert understanding of life on Earth and Darwin's theory of evolution to explain what alien life must be like: how alien creatures will move, socialise and communicate.
LiveScience Profile Q&A with Dr. Kershenbaum: Mathematics key to unlocking mystery of language?
NIMBioS Seminar: Analyzing sequences in animal vocal communication
Video Interview:
Talking to the animals
Feature Stories:
Name that tune: Algorithm used in music retrieval systems applied to help identify dolphin whistles
The ABCs of animal speech: Not so random after all
Publications while at NIMBioS
Kershenbaum A, Root-Gutteridge H, Habib B, Koler-Matznick J, Mitchell B, Palacios V, Waller S. March 2016. Root-disentangling canid howls across multiple species and subspecies: Structure in a complex communication channel. Behavioural Processes 124:149-157. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Garland EC. 2015. Quantifying similarity in animal vocal sequences: which metric performs best? Methods in Ecology and Evolution. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Freeberg TM, Gammon DE. 2015. Estimating vocal repertoire size is like collecting coupons: A theoretical framework with heterogeneity in signal abundance. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 373(2015): 1-11. [Online]
Kershenbaum A. 2014. Entropy rate as a measure of animal vocal complexity. Bioacoustics, 23(3): 195-208. [Online]
Demartsev V, Kershenbaum A, Ilany A, Barocas A, Bar Ziv E, Koren L, Geffen E. 2014. Male hyraxes increase song complexity and duration in the presence of alert individuals. Behavioral Ecology. [Online]
Kershenbaum et al. 2014. Acoustic sequences in non-human animals: A tutorial review and prospectus. Biological Reviews. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Blank L, Sinai I, Merila J, Blaustein L, Templeton AR. 2014. Landscape influences on dispersal behaviour: A theoretical model and empirical test using the fire salamander, Salamandra infraimmaculata. Oecologia, 175(2): 509-520. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Bowles A, Freeburg T, Dezhe J, Lameira A, Bohn K. 2014. Animal vocal sequences: Not the Markov chains we thought they were. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 281(1792): 20141370. [Online]
Kershenbaum A. 2013. Entropy rate as a measure of animal vocal complexity. Bioacoustics. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Roch MA. 2013. An image processing based paradigm for the extraction of tonal sounds in cetacean communications. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 134(6): 4435-4445. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Sayigh LS, Janik VM. 2013. The encoding of individual identity in dolphin signature whistles: How much information is needed? PLoS ONE, 8(10): e77671. [Online]
Lameira AR, de Vries H, Hardus ME, Hall CPA, Mitra-Setia T, Spruijt BM, Kershenbaum A, Sterck EHM, van Noordwijk M, van Schaik C, Wich SA. 2013. Predator guild does not influence orangutan alarm call rates and combinations. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 67(3): 519-528. [Online]
Presentations while at NIMBioS
Kershenbaum A. 4 March 2014. What and where is the information in animal vocalisations? Evolutionary Biology Weekly Seminar, Edinburgh University, UK.
Kershenbaum A. 5 March 2014. What and where is the information in animal vocalisations? Ad hoc seminar, Dept. of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK.
Kershenbaum A. 28 February 2014. What and where is the information in animal vocalisations? Ad hoc Seminar, Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Kershenbaum A. 5 December 2013. What and where is the information in animal vocalisations? Behavioural Ecology Group Weekly Seminar, University of Michigan.
Kershenbaum A. 10 September 2013. Can we talk to dolphins? Science Café, Ijams Nature Center, Knoxville, TN.
Kershenbaum A. 5 August 2013. Animal vocal sequences and their statistical properties: A cross-taxa comparison. International Ethological Conference, Newcastle.
Kershenbaum A. 29 July 2013. Animal vocal sequences and their statistical properties: A cross-taxa comparison. Animal Behaviour Society, Boulder.
Kershenbaum A. 13 March 2013. Perceptual techniques to interpret cetacean vocal information. Ad hoc Seminar, Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
Kershenbaum A. 14 March 2013. Analysing sequences in animal vocal communication. NIMBioS MSI Outreach Lecture, California State University, San Marcos.
Kershenbaum A. January 2013. Syntactic analyses of bird song. University of Haifa.
Kershenbaum A. January 2013. Where is identity information hidden in dolphin signature whistles? University of Haifa.
Kershenbaum A. January 2013. Where is identity information hidden in dolphin signature whistles? Ad hoc Seminar, Tel Aviv University.
Kershenbaum A. 2 October 2012. Analyzing sequences in animal vocal communication. NIMBioS Seminar Series, NIMBioS, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN. [Online]
Software, Websites & Data while at NIMBioS
Kershenbaum A, Smuts B, Owens J, Koler-Matznick J, Comiskey J. 15 March 2014. HowlCoder crowdsourcing site. [Online]
Kershenbaum A, Roch M. 9 December 2013. IPRiT software library. [Online]
Meetings/Workshops while at NIMBioS
Workshop: Analyzing Animal Vocal Sequences. [Website]
Media Coverage
Hyraxes sing better for attentive audiences. Wired (3 September 2014)
Animal speech shows similarities to human language. Science (20 August 2014)
Chirps, whistles, clicks: Do any animals have a true 'language'? Washington Post (22 August 2014)
Arik Kershenbaum interview. BBC Radio 5 (20 August 2014)
How animals chew the fat just like us: Howls, croaks and chirps are 'just as complex as human speech'. Daily Mail (20 August 2014)
Animal noises 'more closely linked' with human speech. Morning Star (19 August 2014).
Flipper on Line 1? UT researchers closer to figuring out how dolphins talk. WVLT-TV (24 October 2013)
Algorithm can identify dolphin whistles. New York Times (28 October 2013)
Shazam-Like dolphin system ID's their whistles. Scientific American (5 November 2013)
Shazam at sea: Music lookup techniques can distinguish dolphin calls. The Verge (23 October 2013)
NIMBioS
1122 Volunteer Blvd., Suite 106
University of Tennessee
Knoxville,
TN 37996-3410
PH: (865) 974-9334
FAX: (865) 974-9461
Contact NIMBioS
