Dr Katharina Peters has been affiliated with CERG since 2018 when she came to New Zealand as a postdoctoral researcher on an Australia Awards Endeavour Fellowship to study the foraging ecology of delphinids in New Zealand waters using stable isotopes in collaboration with NIWA. She expanded this work in 2020 as a postdoc with Massey focussing on the foraging ecology and distribution of several species of odontocetes in New Zealand and Australian waters, using stable isotope analyses and species distribution models.

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After postdoctoral positions at Massey University, Flinders University (Australia), the University of Zurich (Switzerland), and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), Dr Peters started a faculty position as Lecturer in Biological Sciences at the University of Wollongong (Australia) in February 2023.

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Dr Peters' primary research interests lie at the interface of animal behaviour, population ecology and evolutionary biology and how to apply this information to better manage the conservation of wild populations and their associated environments. Addressing these questions requires quantitative and interdisciplinary approaches. Thus, she uses an integrative approach involving field-intensive ecological and behavioural work with ecological modelling and molecular analyses. 

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Current primary research projects include:

1) the foraging ecology and distribution of several species of odontocetes in New Zealand and Australian waters, using stable isotope analyses and species distribution models

2) reproductive success in relation to age and sex of Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia

3) spatial and population dynamics of Weddell seals in the Ross Sea

 

Dr Peters also currently supervises MSc student Déborah Casano-Bally and PhD student Eva-Maria Hanninger.

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