This chapter was established in July 2011 and provides an opportunity for those studying marine mammals in Australia and New Zealand to share ideas, start discussions, and keep in touch with students from different labs and universities across the region.

The primary objective of the chapter is to organise biennial conferences that give participants the chance to present and discuss their research in a relaxed environment while networking with other marine mammalogy students and researchers. The 5th meeting of the SMM Australia/New Zealand Student Chapter was hosted as our first virtual conference in ealy 2021 which was incredibly successful, with a 3-day event spanning 5 time zones! We held a workshop on designing graphical abstracts and a panel discussion on project management in a crisis! Additionally we had 2 guest speakers talking about careers and 13 student presentations.

Our next conference will be held in April 2023 in Hobart, Tasmania. Please visit the conference website for more information. 

To join the chapter and receive information on chapter-related activities, please fill in this membership registration form and send it to anzscsmm@gmail.com.

We would like to extend membership to any interested students from the South Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia. While we realise that geographic separation will limit our ability to facilitate face-to-face meetings, we also recognise the need for every student and young professional to have accessible to them a forum for networking beyond their immediate academic/research location. As such, we would encourage students from these regions to apply for membership, join the Australian/New Zealand Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/216733571703949/), and get involved with any and all of our research-related discussions!

The chapter is under the new and enthusiastic leadership of Grace Russell (Southern Cross University), Brodie Elsdon (Curtin University), Gabrielle Genty (Flinders University), Ciara Browne (Curtin University) and Sophia Volzke (University of Tasmania) from Australia, Courtney Ogilvy (University of Auckland) and Rebecca Boys (Massey University) from New Zealand. We are very grateful for the two years of Chapter leadership from Jasmin Groß‬, Lara Pogson-Manning and Cassie Speakman who organised a successful first virtual conference and we couldn’t be more appreciative of the time and effort they poured into the Chapter and its students. We wish our freshest retirees the best of luck with the remainder of their PhDs and hope to see them as guest speakers at future Chapter meetings. They will be missed!

For any questions regarding membership or chapter activities, please contact us at the chapter email noted above.

Professional sponsors: Dr Karen Stockin, Cetacean Ecology Research Group, Massey University.

5th ANZSCSMM conference- 1st virtual event!

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to Griffith University’s Environmental Futures Research Institute and the Company of Biologists for their generous contributions, without which we would have been unable to organise our recent conference. We thank them for their support!