Dr. Jacob Job Research Associate Department of Fish, Wildlife, Conservation Biology Colorado State University

“Listening to a Continent: The Students, Sounds, and Stories of Soundscape Science”

Abstract

The Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division of the National Park Service is tasked with monitoring and managing noise and light pollution in the national parks, as well as their effects on human visitation and wildlife. To aid in this mission, in 2011 NSNSD formed a cooperative agreement with members of the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, which eventually became known as the Sound and Light Ecology Team. With the help of a team of undergraduates who populate the SALET Listening Laboratory, the research scientists, post- docs, and graduate students of SALET have joined in the fight to understand and combat the effects of noise and light pollution in America’s natural areas. To make their work more broadly accessible and widely known among other scientists and the general public, additional efforts have been directed towards creating and maintaining an official website to act as a billboard for the important work being conducted by the team, as well as a repository for the numerous publications, presentations, and media documents associated with their work. Finally, in an attempt to raise awareness about the diversity and importance of natural sounds, the team has begun capturing individual and soundscape recordings heard in national parks around the country. These recordings are being stored in permanent libraries to document species and their associated acoustic diversity in anticipation of future changes. More importantly, these recordings are being displayed online and in visitor center exhibits to reach out to visitors and the general public to raise awareness about the unique species and sounds of the national parks, the threats that they face, and why their conservation is so critical to maintain the health of national park ecosystems.

Biography

Jacob Job received a B.S. in Biology from East Tennessee State University, a M.S. in Ecology and Organismal Biology from Eastern Michigan University, and a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Western Michigan University. He came to work at CSU in 2015, a week after finishing his PhD, to manage the Listening Lab. Shortly after arriving, he decided to transition his career away from research science and towards the science communication realm. He has since helped brand the Sound and Light Ecology via the creation of an official website, produce numerous science communication products involving undergraduate workers from the Listening Lab, and begun work on numerous natural sounds recording projects in national parks around the country. He’s not sure where his career path will take him, but he ultimately hopes to continue to capture the natural sounds of the world via audio recordings and to work with the general public to better understand and integrate scientific findings into our communities.