Caitlin E. O'Connell-Rodwell

Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell is a behavioral ecologist who has studied elephant society within Etosha National Park, Namibia, for over 30 years. Her National Geographic Society-funded project started in 2002, when she began measurements of the seismic properties of elephant low frequency vocalizations and the elephants’ ability to detect these vibrations as signals. The scope of her work expanded beyond acoustic and seismic studies to a broad look at how an elephant society is organized in an arid environment. O’Connell-Rodwell's journey as a scientist began as an undergraduate majoring in biology, which led to a master’s degree in animal communication, studying the role communication plays in species isolation mechanisms in the Hawaiian Islands. From there, she traveled through southern Africa for a year and accepted a three-year contract with the Namibian Government, working with farmers in rural Zambezi to help them manage the elephant/human interface in the region, along with studying elephant ecology and behavior and particularly their vocal communication. That work formed the basis of her dissertation research at University of California, Davis, where she obtained a Ph.D. in ecology. O’Connell-Rodwell then took on a postdoc at Stanford University in the Center for Conservation Biology to study ivory trade policy based in China, realizing her passion lay in studying African elephants in the wild. O’Connell-Rodwell and her husband co-founded a nonprofit organization, Utopia Scientific, in 2002. She has published numerous books and scientific and popular feature articles about her research, including features in Scientific American, National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine and Aeon Magazine. She has given two TED talks and many public lectures around the world, including several countries in Europe, as well as China, Australia and Africa. She was voted Distinguished Young Alumna at UC Davis, and won the Sibert and Horn Book Honors for her co-authored book, "The Elephant Scientist." O’Connell-Rodwell is currently working on several documentaries, storytelling and speaking engagements to help further instill an awe of nature in budding scientists and nature lovers.