Simone Baumann-Pickering is a professor and biological oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. She is interested in biological and ecological questions in regards to climate adaptations that range from a basic understanding of short and long-term cyclical behavioral patterns and geographic distribution of animals, to ecological questions like habitat preference and quality, predator-prey interactions, or adaptations to anthropogenic impacts and a changing environment. Her goal is to contribute to the conservation and management of ecosystems.

Baumann-Pickering has been working on toothed whale echolocation discrimination and classification, acoustic long-term monitoring and lately, habitat modeling using passive acoustics. She has advanced our knowledge of the geographic distribution, animal density, seasonality, and habitat preference of rare beaked whale species as well as their relationship to oceanographic conditions. New research interests of hers are the investigation of marine soundscapes and the coupling of passive and active acoustics with environmental factors.

Prior to her appointment as assistant research biologist in 2012, Baumann-Pickering held positions as a postdoctoral researcher and graduate research assistant at Scripps. She earned a doctorate of natural sciences (equivalent of a Ph.D.) in 2009 at Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in Germany, where she also earned master’s and bachelor’s degree equivalents.