Joyce Poole

Joyce Hatheway Poole (born 1 May 1956) is a biologist, ethologist, conservationist, and co-founder/scientific director of ElephantVoices.[1] She is a world authority on elephant reproductive, communicative, and cognitive behavior.[2]

Poole graduated from Smith College in 1979 with a degree in biological sciences and received her PhD in animal behavior from the University of Cambridge in 1982.[3] She began her research with Cynthia Moss in Amboseli in 1975, focusing on male elephants, which culminated in her Cambridge dissertation on the sexual and aggressive phenomenon of musth in male elephants, entitled, Musth and male-male competition in the African elephant. In the mid-1980s Poole and Katherine (Katy) Payne worked together in Amboseli studying elephant vocal communication. This collaboration led to the discovery that African elephants use powerful, very low frequency calls to communicate with one another over long distances.[4]

Poole has worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University, head of the Elephant Program at Kenya Wildlife Service, and Scientific Director of ElephantVoices, which she co-founded with husband Petter Granli in 2002. Over decades Poole has been a vocal advocate for elephant conservation and welfare.[5][6] She has received several awards for her work, including the Smith College Medal and Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award.

  1. ^ "Welcome to ElephantVoices". www.elephantvoices.org. Retrieved 2024-01-09.
  2. ^ "National Geographic Explorer Directory". explorer-directory.nationalgeographic.org. Retrieved 2024-01-09.
  3. ^ American Women of Science Since 1900, Volume 1 By Tiffany K. Wayne, Page 768
  4. ^ Poole, Joyce H.; Payne, Katherine; Langbauer, William R.; Moss, Cynthia J. (June 1988). "The social contexts of some very low frequency calls of African elephants". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 22 (6): 385–392. Bibcode:1988BEcoS..22..385P. doi:10.1007/BF00294975.
  5. ^ "A Passionate Voice for Justice: Joyce Poole '74 Named 2017 Horace Dutton Taft Alumni Medal Honoree". Taftschool.org. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  6. ^ Katy Payne, Cornell University; Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Save the Elephants; Vivek Menon, Wildlife Trust of India; Cynthia Moss, Amboseli Elephant Research Project; Joyce Poole, Savanna Elephant Vocalization Project; Andrea Turkalo, Wildlife Conservation Society (31 October 2002). "Lifting the Ivory Ban Called Premature – Scientists Offer a Perspective on Elephants and Ivory". NPR. Retrieved 28 January 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)