Spotlight on Partnerships: Cornell Bioacoustics Research Program
Over the years, the Cornell Bioacoustics Research Program has applied for and been awarded several grants through NOPP funding announcements. In this month’s Spotlight on Partnerships, the NOPP Office decided to ask the group some questions, to find out more about how they learned about NOPP and why they keep participating in the program.
NOPP Office: Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions from the NOPP Office! How/when did your program first learn about NOPP? Cornell was first involved with NOPP in 2004 developing multimedia education and digital libraries using marine mammal sounds. In 2007 Cornell teamed with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center at NOAA and Marine Acoustics, Inc. to study whales and potential acoustic disturbances in Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary, and followed up with other projects and proposals in 2010 and 2011 as both a lead and as a partner with other collaborators.
NOPP: You continue to apply for NOPP-funded proposals when applicable: what keeps you coming back? What do you like most about the NOPP program?At the Cornell Bioacoustics Research Program, we’re drawn to new opportunities for research and also to building collaborations outside the academic sphere. The grant size is also attractive as the multiple funders provide resources for research that aren’t commonly found through traditional academic funding sources. NOPP has also provided a consistent mechanism to improve efficiencies for long-term technical development by building on prior research efforts.
NOPP: How has working through NOPP changed how your group performs its research? Do you consistently work with the same group of institutions? If not, how do you decide which institutions to collaborate with? With NOPP, we’re encouraged towards applied science rather than hypothesis driven research while allowing for cutting edge development. In some cases there’s no way to have access to some cutting edge tools which reside with companies and are inaccessible to us at a research level. It is also worth noting that commercial organizations are aware of the program and we have been approached directly by several companies looking to build a collaboration trough the NOPP process. We’ve teamed with many partners in both the federal, commercial, and academic realms and often develop mutually beneficial relationships extending beyond the initial award. Over the years NOPP has helped Cornell build great partnerships with organizations such as: NOAA, SAIC, Pacific Northwest National Labs, NYU, Lockheed Martin, Marine Acoustics, Inc, and ESS, Inc.
NOPP: What recommendations do you have for researchers or institutions who are interested in proposing to a NOPP funding announcement? We’d recommend active participation at conferences and workshops, including industry-oriented shows. These are great opportunities to engage with potential collaborators and meet other scientists in different sectors or with different complementary scientific backgrounds. This often helps generate novel approaches to the project and creative applications for the research.
The NOPP Office would like to thank Christopher W. Clark, Ph.D., Harold Cheyne, Ph.D., Peter Dugan, Ph.D., and Aaron Rice, Ph.D, for taking the time to answer our questions and Stan DeForest for facilitating the process. For more information on the Cornell Bioacoustics Research Program, please visit their website.
