NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2012

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Understanding bat biosonar performance using the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound and adaptive beamformingThis proposal will test the series of hypotheses that bats use adaptive beamforming for echolocation and that this adaptive beam provides more tracking information than a stationary transmit beam. The project will use a combination of biological, behavioral, acoustic, engineering, signal processing and statistical techniques as well as new acoustic technology and a creative mathematical approach to investigate adaptive beamforming in the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus). A high-resolution, multi-element microphone array will measure the echolocation beam from both stationary and flying bats and the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound will be used to determine the tracking accuracy for static and adaptive transmit beams.As part of the project, the postdoctoral fellow will create a bioacoustic curriculum on the biological, physiological, and ecological characteristics of bats that includes acoustic files and spectrograms and students will be encouraged via inquiry-based approaches to create bioacoustic experiments and mathematically interpret their results. The curriculum, alone with outreach components, will be implemented at high schools across Rhode Island to foster an understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of science and encourage student excitement and engagement about biology, mathematics, and the physical sciences.