Press Releases

February 12, 1996
WHALE EXPERT JOINS SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY: PAUL FORESTELL TO HEAD PSYCHOBIOLOGY PROGRAM

Contact: Jane Finalborgo
(516) 287-8313

Paul H. Forestell, an expert on humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins, has joined the Southampton Graduate Campus faculty after eight years as research director for the Pacific Whale Foundation in Maui, Hawaii.

Dr. Forestell, whose doctoral degree is in comparative psychology, is an associate professor of psychology and director of Southampton's Psychobiology Program.

A Canadian who did his pre-doctoral work in New Brunswick, Forestell moved to Hawaii in 1976, just as whaling was winding down and serious whale research was beginning. Before joining the foundation -- where he supervised marine-mammal and coral-reef studies in Hawaii, Japan and elsewhere in the Pacific -- he was a senior research associate at a dolphin-research facility, the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory in Honolulu.

Forestell, who has co-authored two books on humpback whales and numerous articles on the "songs" of whales and "language" of dolphins, will bring his research experience to bear on the education of his Southampton students.

He will maintain his Hawaiian ties, returning there for dolphin research in July and August and whale research in January, when the humpbacks migrate to the Islands. In keeping with Southampton's emphasis on blending class study with real-world work and research, Forestell plans to involve students in all his continuing research.

"I also see lots of opportunities here on the East Coast," Forestell says, "For instance, the Okeanos Ocean Research Foundation in Riverhead has a network of professional people and great experience rescuing and rehabilitating stranded turtles, dolphins and whales. And they are building an aquarium. I foresee developing a strong co-op education program that will benefit both institutions along with the students."

While he has taught in Canada and Hawaii, Forestell says the reason he made this move was to do more teaching -- and less research -- at a small college where personal attention is the rule and an individual teacher can make a real difference in developing new programs. While his own teaching is within the Social Sciences Division, he says his new courses in animal cognition and marine-mammal studies will be strengthened by strong programs in marine biology and the natural sciences.

Professor Forestell earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in psychology and philosophy from the University of New Brunswick and his Ph.D. in comparative psychology from the University of Hawaii.

"Behavior, learning and memory were common threads of interest, but the complexity of marine mammals has made me see creatures differently," he says of his research. "My hope is that students -- as they consider higher-order brain processes, consciousness and awareness -- will come to see that life exists across a broad continuum that embraces rats and whales as well as human beings."