Dr. Juliana Castrillón

Juliana joined Pacific Whale Foundation in 2022 as a Research Specialist to support our cetacean research in Ecuador. She assists with all aspects of our humpback whale and bottlenose dolphin projects, including the collection and processing of biological samples. Juliana’s main expertise is in humpback whale bioenergetics and she completed her PhD research at Griffith University in Australia, developing non-lethal methods for the evaluation of energetic reserves in humpback whales. She has extensive field experience using methodologies such as biological sampling, photo-ID, and line transects. She has previously participated in different cetacean research projects including: population size and abundance estimation using mark-recapture methodology, identification of critical habitat and proposing management measures, evaluation of humpback whale risk of ship strike, and more.