Denise Herzing

Dr. Denise Herzing is a leading authority on dolphin behavior and communication. She is the founder and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to studying the natural behaviors and communication of Atlantic spotted dolphins in their natural habitat. The Wild Dolphin Project, established to advance the study of dolphin communication in the wild, is recognized as the longest-running underwater dolphin research project globally. Herzing is among the few marine mammal researchers who utilize a non-invasive approach to studying wild dolphins, focusing on underwater behavior to uncover insights not accessible through surface observations.

Herzing holds a Ph.D. in behavioral biology and environmental studies, an M.A. in behavioral biology, and a B.S. in marine zoology. She serves as an affiliate assistant professor in biological sciences at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. Herzing has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, awarded for scientific achievement and promise. She is also a fellow with the Explorers Club and serves as a scientific advisor for the Lifeboat Foundation and the American Cetacean Society.

Central to Herzing's research is the pursuit of two-way communication between humans and dolphins. In collaboration with Dr. Thad Starner and his team at Georgia Tech, she helped develop the Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry device, or CHAT, a wearable technology that produces sounds in the water. Using CHAT, Herzing can generate her own whistle name and create synthetic sounds that refer to specific objects introduced to the dolphins. Building on her research, scientists have developed the first large language model for dolphin vocalizations, known as DolphinGemma. This model, created through a partnership with Georgia Institute of Technology and Google DeepMind, analyzes the Wild Dolphin Project's audio data to identify patterns in dolphin sounds and predict sequences. Herzing's contributions to artificial intelligence and marine mammal communication earned her recognition on TIME's list of the 100 Most Influential People in AI.

Herzing is co-editor of "Dolphin Communication and Cognition" and author of "Dolphin Diaries: My 25 Years with Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas," "Is Anyone Listening? What Animals Are Saying to Each Other and to Us," and "The Wild Dolphin Project." Her work has been featured in National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Ocean Realm, and Sonar magazines, as well as on Nature, Discovery Channel, PBS, ABC, BBC, and NHK. Herzing has presented at TED, the Society for Marine Mammalogy, European Cetacean Society, International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Explorers Club, and the Boston Museum of Science. Her decades of fieldwork, technological innovation, and commitment to understanding animal intelligence position her as a prominent voice in marine science and interspecies communication.