Michael Smotherman

Michael Smotherman is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas A&M University. He leads the Smotherman Lab, focusing on the neurobiology of communication in bats. His affiliations include the Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience (TAMIN) and the Faculty of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Education: A.B. in Biology (Occidental College, 1989), M.S. in Zoology (University of Maine, 1992), Ph.D. in Physiological Science (UCLA, 1998). Postdoctoral research at UCLA.

Research interests center on how bats integrate sensory information for communication and navigation. Key topics include echolocation network neurobiology, vocal communication evolution, and olfactory tracking strategies. His lab studies bats as models for understanding sensorimotor integration, social brain evolution, and bio-inspired sonar systems.

Publications span neurophysiological studies of auditory cortex function, behavioral ecology of bat communication, and applied research in bioacoustics. Recent work explores bat song production, cortical processing of echoes, and ecological impacts of wind turbines.