Rachel Probert PhD

Rachel handed in her PhD  in 2023 and has recently wrapped up all the paper work with the official award in early 2024 –  and took up the roll of Post-Doc on our NRF funded humpback whale project we are running trying to understand vocal communication patterns in feeding humpback whales around SA.

Previously – Rachel completed her BSc in marine biology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2015 after which she interned with the Namibian Dolphin Project in Walvis Bay where she subsequently started her student career in marine mammal science. Rachel completed her BSc Hons in 2016 where she carried out annual population assessments of Heaviside’s dolphins in Walvis Bay. From here she shifted to bioacoustics research where she started her MSc, and subsequently her PhD, in acoustic communication of bottlenose dolphins in Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique. Her PhD focused on two species of bottlenose dolphin and the focal point of her research is vocal repertoires and call use within the different populations. several papers are already published from this work – go check out our publications page here or Rachel’s Researchgate profile