New Faces at Canisius: Christina E. Perazio, PhD
For Christina E. Perazio, PhD, her childhood dream of studying whales became a reality with an unexpected conversation in graduate school—and a leap of faith. What began as a chance invitation from a fellow student to join a field project in Colombia turned into more than a decade of research, community and collaboration. Today, Christina continues to study whale song in the Gulf of Tribugá alongside Macuáticos, a thriving nonprofit led by a team of women scientists from Colombia and the U.S.
What inspired you to pursue a career in animal behavior and conservation, and what drew you to join the ABEC program at Canisius?
I’ve have been in love with whales and the ocean since childhood. Through college experiences—research, fieldwork in Mexico, and an internship at the NY Aquarium—I landed on field research and conservation. After completing a master’s degree in dolphin communication, I found my way back to my undergrad university, The University of New England, to teach for the Animal Behavior program for five years. I absolutely loved it — the teaching, mentoring, working with students, etc. During that time, I went back to school and finished my PhD at the University at Buffalo in the Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior program, where I also met my husband. In 2022, I moved to Buffalo and taught as an adjunct in the Canisius ABEC program. I quickly fell in love with the students, the atmosphere, and the one-on-one mentoring. When the full-time position opened, applying was an easy decision
What areas of animal behavior, ecology, or conservation are you most passionate about, and how will that shape your teaching and research here at Canisius?
I’m a behavioral ecologist and ethologist specializing in animal communication. At Canisius, I teach animal cognition, animal communication, and cetology (whale and dolphins), with hopes to add a marine mammal field research travel course and others focused on conservation. My WildWaves Lab is on the ground floor of Science Hall, Room 016. Two projects that students can get involved with are CHRP: Colombian Humpback Research Program and the new Over the Roar: Noise & Social Calls in the Bats of WNY. The projects include a combo of field work and computer analyses.
How do you hope to involve students in your research or fieldwork, and what skills do you want them to gain from those experiences?
For the CHRP project, students will work on two long-running datasets: soundscape recordings from the Gulf of Tribugá in Colombia and humpback whale song recordings, analyzing spectrograms, running frequency analyses, thinking about evolutionary and mechanistic questions, and how all of this relates to ocean conservation. For the bat project, students will help deploy recorders at local field sites (urban and rural) in addition to doing acoustic analyses and collaborating with state and local partners to apply the results to conservation initiatives. Students will also be able to work on their science communication skills sharing their work with the public.
What excites you most about teaching ABEC students, and how do you approach helping them connect classroom learning with real-world conservation challenges?
ABEC students are so unique and so passionate. Listening to them dive into topics in class and apply what they are learning and think about how it relates to their future careers is very rewarding. Some of my favorite classes to teach are our introductory animal behavior sequence – I love getting to know our students as freshmen and then watching them grow. I incorporate data and experiences from my field work whenever possible, both to inspire students and to give them tangible examples of why they are learning what they are learning. And it’s not just me, I think the ABEC and ANZO faculty do this well as a department. We all work with undergrads in our labs or through some kind of experiential learning program, which is a valuable experience even for students who do not go on to actually conduct research, because it allows them to gain valuable transferable skills.
Are there particular conservation or ecological issues—locally or globally—that you hope to raise awareness about through your work at Canisius?
We need whales. Phytoplankton are the plants of the ocean, consuming carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Phytoplankton eat whale poop, so we need whales eating (and then pooping) across the globe along their migrations to feed the phytoplankton. Whales rely on sound to navigate and communicate; if they can’t hear, they will die, and along with them, our oceans and then us.
What do you enjoy doing in your free time? What’s one fun or little-known fact about you that colleagues and students might be surprised to learn?
I love hiking, camping, and kayaking. I also enjoy binge-watching Gilmore Girls and Criminal Minds. My husband and I own 52 acres of wooded land in Boston, NY, with three little streams (one named for our late dog, Cinnamon), where we’re building our home—and even setting up recorders to listen for bats!
New Faces at Canisius is a monthly series that introduces newer members of the Canisius University community.
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