Dr. Diana Reiss
Diana Reiss, Ph.D. is
Professor of Psychology, Hunter College.
Diana
earned her Ph.D. in Speech and Communication Science from
Temple University and is an internationally recognized researcher in
animal cognition and communication. In 1982, she developed a laboratory
at Marine World in California, where she investigated the nature of
dolphin communication and cognitive abilities.
Her research focuses on marine mammal cognition and
communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of
intelligence. Her past work includes cognitive studies with interactive
keyboards with dolphins to investigate their learning and communicative
abilities, research in mirror self-recognition in marine mammals, marine
mammal vocal repertoires and vocal and behavioral development in
dolphins. Her work also involves the rescue and rehabilitation of
stranded marine mammals. She was one of the scientists instrumental in
the campaign to protect dolphins from being killed in tuna nets that
resulted in the labeling of “dolphin safe” tuna.
Diana’s work has been published in numerous international scientific
journals and book chapters and has been featured in many television
science programs, included Nature, National Geographic, Wild Kingdom,
the Today Show and several BBC nature shows.
Diana authored
Secrets of the Dolphins, and
coauthored
Self-recognition in an Asian elephant,
The fallacy of ‘signature whistles’ in bottlenose dolphins: a
comparative
perspective of ‘signature information’ in animal vocalizations,
Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of
cognitive
convergence,
Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition,
Whistle contour development in captive-born infant bottlenose
dolphins
(Tursiops truncatus): Role of learning, and
Mother-infant spatial relations in captive bottlenose dolphins,
Tursiops
truncatus.
Read
Whistles with Dolphins,
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human
persons’, and
Recall of the Wild; Fighting Boredom, Zoos Play to the Inmates’
Instincts.
