Jamie D. J. Macaulay

Jamie D. J. Macaulay is a Research Fellow at the Scottish Oceans Institute within the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Working at the intersection of marine biology and acoustic technology, Dr. Macaulay specializes in passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals, particularly cetaceans in challenging environments like tidal rapids and near marine renewable energy installations.

Dr. Macaulay's primary research interests focus on passive acoustic monitoring, marine mammal behavior, and cetacean ecology, with particular expertise in harbor porpoises and their interactions with tidal energy infrastructure. Their work bridges marine conservation science and acoustic engineering, developing methodologies to track marine mammals in high-energy environments where traditional observation methods fail. A significant portion of their research addresses the critical challenge of assessing collision risks between marine mammals and tidal turbines, providing essential data for sustainable marine renewable energy development.

The research portfolio reveals a clear trajectory toward increasingly sophisticated acoustic monitoring techniques, with recent work emphasizing open-source software development (notably contributions to PAMGuard), 3D movement tracking of marine mammals, and cross-species applications of acoustic monitoring techniques from marine mammals to bats. Dr. Macaulay's work demonstrates strong interdisciplinary connections between marine biology, bioacoustics, renewable energy engineering, and conservation science.

Dr. Macaulay is deeply involved with the PAMGuard project, an open-source software platform for passive acoustic monitoring that has become a standard tool in marine mammal research. Their collaborative network includes prominent researchers such as David M. Gillespie, Clara E. Sparling, and Gordon D. Hastie, with whom they've conducted field studies around tidal energy installations. Their doctoral research focused on harbor porpoise behavior in tidal rapids, establishing the foundation for their current work on marine renewable energy impacts.