After conducting groundbreaking scientific research that provided the first-ever description of African manatee vocalizations, four New College undergraduates co-authored and published their first scholarly paper on October 21. It was a major step toward helping understand and conserve the vulnerable species on a global scale.
The authors include: current thesis students Cecilia Hampton and Hannah Nations, and May 2021 alumnae Karianne Kapfer and Emily Garcia. Their mentor, New College Assistant Professor of Biology and Marine Science Athena Rycyk, Ph.D., was the first author of the paper, which is entitled First Characterization of Vocalizations and Passive Acoustic Monitoring of the Vulnerable African Manatee (Trichechus senegalensis) and published in the prestigious Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The group collaborated on the work with researchers from the African Marine Mammal Conservation Organization (AMMCO).
“It’s rewarding to work with our talented students and see them develop as scientists, and it’s very unusual at most undergraduate institutions for students to engage in science at this level,” Rycyk said, adding that the students started the research as paid interns with the Environmental Discovery Awards Program (EDAP), which is funded by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. “The students were fully engaged in the project and developed methods to find and characterize manatee vocalizations. Being able to provide such extraordinary opportunities for students is one of the many reasons I’m grateful to be a professor at New College.”
So, what was the ultimate aim of this research? To better understand African manatees, which are—even among understudied sirenians—“a poorly understood, elusive and vulnerable species that is difficult to detect,” the authors wrote.
And how did the New College researchers help detect the creatures and characterize their vocalizations? By using passive acoustic monitoring (and it was the first effort to do so). Within two three-day periods at Lake Ossa, Cameroon, at least 3,367 individual African manatee vocalizations were detected (mostly in the middle of the night and at dusk). Call characteristics such as fundamental frequency, duration, harmonics, subharmonics and emphasized band were characterized for 289 high-quality tonal vocalizations.
“Our findings are significant beyond providing the first description of African manatee vocalizations,” Rycyk said. “We went further and developed a method to find the elusive African manatees, and our findings are already being used to expand acoustic monitoring efforts in other countries including Nigeria, Senegal, Benin (and soon, Chad).”
African manatees face numerous threats, including poaching, incidental catches in fishing nets, entrapment by dams and habitat degradation, Rycyk said. Traditional visual methods of finding the vulnerable African manatees are unreliable, as the manatees have developed cryptic behavior to avoid poaching, she said.
“Our methods do not rely on being able to see the manatees, so these methods are crucial to better understanding the species distribution,” Rycyk said.
For Hampton, working as a research intern on this project was instrumental in helping her prepare for her New College studies, as well as for her future career in marine biology.
“It was an incredibly rewarding and exciting experience to get to work with my peers and Dr. Rycyk and the accomplished researchers from AMMCO in Cameroon,” Hampton said. “I’m proud to be a published author so soon. This article was a very big part of my workload for almost a year, so publishing it is a very invigorating feeling.”
The same was true for Nations, a biopsychology major.
“I’ve been working with Professor Rycyk in one capacity or another since my first year, and I was super excited to have the chance to work on a paper with her,” Nations said. “I plan to continue working in and researching animal behavior. New College has given me the opportunity to work one-on-one with amazing professors, and to conduct research both collaboratively and on my own. These research skills are incredibly valuable to my future career plans.”
Kapfer, a marine biology major at New College, is now a graduate student at Cornell University (working in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Kapfer’s scientific experience at New College was a significant stepping stone, and she is continuing that research trajectory.
“I’m currently studying how wind turbines off the coast of Maryland are affecting marine mammals,” Kapfer said. “I’m taking baleen whale vocalizations and creating a dataset that will be used to teach software to automatically detect baleen whale vocalizations (so that it does not have to be done by hand).”
Kapfer learned so much from Rycyk and her peers about how to conduct this type of research, and studying at New College helped her fully realize her childhood dream.
“Ever since I was four years old, I’ve known I wanted to work with marine mammals in some capacity. But it wasn’t until my time at New College that I figured out that I wanted to pursue a career in marine bioacoustics (the production, transmission and reception of animal sound in the ocean), particularly with marine mammals,” Kapfer said. “This research is exactly in that field and it helped prepare me for my thesis on marine mammal acoustics. I believe that this experience was a key part of making my resume competitive amongst the many students applying to graduate school.”
Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.
Twelve senior researchers will work on seven interrelated projects exploring how dolphins, humans and seals learn to recognize and process auditory objects in cluttered acoustic scenes. The initiative was one of only 28 projects selected from a pool of 340 proposals to the MURI program for Fiscal Year 2022.
The Office of Naval Research will oversee the undertaking, with Carnegie Mellon University serving as the lead institution in collaboration with New College, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
If fully funded as proposed, the project will run for five years, with an award to New College of $576,960, according to Justin Miller, Ed.D., the director of the Office of Research Programs and Services at New College. This will fund the research of New College Director of Environmental Studies Heidi Harley, Ph.D., and three of her student assistants/interns per year. It will also cover research travel to partner aquariums, as well as supplies and consulting fees.
“One of my favorite aspects of this award is the people with whom I get to collaborate. Thorny problems require multidisciplinary teams of people with two characteristics: expertise and openness to others’ ideas and perspectives,” Harley said. “This grant’s team is rich in both: experts in sound (bioacoustics, electrical engineers, applied physics), neuroscience (brain investigatory technology like EEG and fNIRS), modeling (more engineers), biology and psychology.”
Harley and the team will measure neural and other physiological markers during behavioral tasks in dolphins, humans and seals. For example, they will test humans and seals under different cardiovascular stresses (like those experienced by divers) to measure the influences of physiological state on perception, action and neural responses—collecting information that could be invaluable for military applications and beyond.
“Because my job is to work with folks to train dolphins who can teach us how they learn to recognize objects using echolocation through their information-seeking behaviors (clicks, the echoes they receive, their head movements, how they swim and approach the objects, etc.), I need lots of local help, and that’s where New College students come in,” Harley said. “I’ll work with some students on campus to manage the data as it is generated, as well as interns who will help us at the facilities where we collect data.”
New College biopsychology thesis student Hannah Nations is the first of those research interns (a pre-grant intern, in this case), and she has been working with the staff and dolphins at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) to prepare Harley and the team for the coming projects covered by the MURI award. Nations has been Harley’s advisee since her first year at New College, as well as a teaching assistant for Harley’s “Introduction to Animal Wellbeing” course.
“I’m working with some of the CMA’s dolphin trainers to prepare one of their dolphins (Nicholas) for research trials. I think the most rewarding aspect of this, for me, has been all the invaluable experience. I get to watch every day as people train dolphins, otters and pelicans,” Nations said. “The fact that Dr. Harley specifically asked me to do this internship is such an honor. I think that conducting in-depth research as an undergraduate at New College has prepared me for a future career in the field of animal behavior.”
New College also offers students the opportunity to work with multiple community partners related to animal research, including the Lemur Conservation Foundation and the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. The interinstitutional MURI award is another example of New College’s collaborative approach to research, and it is one of its most expansive.
A total of $195 million has been allocated for the 2022 MURI awards by the DoD, and these grants will go to 63 U.S. academic institutions for five years each (subject to satisfactory research progress and the availability of funds). Since 1985, the MURI program has supported teams of investigators to help address the DoD’s specific problem sets—leading to technological advances that have made significant impacts on military capabilities and the commercial sector.
“By supporting teams whose members have diverse sets of expertise, the MURI program acknowledges that the complexities of modern science and engineering challenges often intersect more than one discipline and require creative and diverse approaches to tackle these problems,” said Dr. Bindu Nair, the director of the Basic Research Office in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. “It is a program that signifies a legacy of scientific impact and remains a cornerstone of the DoD’s basic research portfolio.”
Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.
SARASOTA, Fla. — Fortune Magazine has ranked New College of Florida’s Master’s in Applied Data Science program eighth in its 2025 rankings—its highest placement since the program’s inception. This marks the third time in four years that New College has appeared on the prestigious list and the first time it has landed in the top 10.
“This recognition is a testament to our commitment to attracting top graduate students and faculty in one of the fastest-growing fields in today’s economy,” said New College President Richard Corcoran. “Being the only Florida university on Fortune’s list is an incredible honor and underscores the leadership and excellence of our data science program.”
Students in the Applied Data Science master’s program complete three semesters on campus in small, close-knit cohorts, learning from faculty with both industry and academic expertise. The program culminates in a full-time internship during the final semester, with industry partners spanning banking, insurance, consulting, nonprofit organizations, and state and federal agencies.
“The success of our alumni and this top-10 ranking are evidence of the high-quality education students receive here at New College,” said Prof. Bernhard Klingenberg, Director of the Applied Data Science Program. “It also highlights the strong value and real-world relevance of our Applied Data Science curriculum.”
Among a list dominated by large flagship public universities and private engineering schools, New College stands out as a small institution offering one of the most affordable programs. Florida residents can complete the 21-month program for less than $18,000—making it one of the most cost-effective options on Fortune’s list, where it was also ranked 11th for affordability.
Enrollment for the Master’s in Applied Data Science program is now open for Fall 2025. To learn more about the program, visit ncf.edu/grad-applied-data-
SARASOTA, Fla., — The Master’s in Applied Data Science program at New College announced today it has received nearly $98,000 in grant funding from the Agricultural Research Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This grant will fund paid internships for students in 2025, marking the third consecutive year the USDA has sponsored the work of New College data science students. The program leverages data science and AI to address pressing challenges in agriculture, sustainability, and environmental science, while equipping students with critical skills for high-demand careers.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to apply their coursework to real-world problems identified by USDA researchers,” said Bernhard Klingenberg, Director of the Applied Data Science Program at New College. “The renewed USDA grant continues to provide students with practical experiences in critical fields such as food security, sustainability, and biodiversity. I look forward to continuing our collaboration with the USDA, training the next generation of data scientists to tackle complex problems and excel in high-growth careers.”
Second-year data science student April Ainsworth used last summer’s USDA grant to research honeybee communication through audio data. As an experienced beekeeper herself, Ainsworth continues her research this fall with the goal of mitigating honeybee population declines.
“I applied both the foundational skills and advanced technical knowledge I gained from my Master’s program at New College to my USDA internship,” Ainsworth said. “Thanks to my data science training, I was able to collaborate with USDA scientists on experiments investigating honeybee communication and hive conditions, which are critical to commercial pollination.”
Another student, Matthew Wilcox, spent his USDA-funded summer internship researching sustainable packaging materials derived from milk proteins. His work focuses on finding eco-friendly alternatives to plastic, addressing the global environmental challenge of reducing plastic waste.
Melvin Adkins, who graduated from the program in May, now works as an analyst for a financial consulting company. He completed a 14-week USDA internship last spring, analyzing over 1.6 million records on high-risk arthropods intercepted at U.S. ports of entry. His work aimed to assess the risk of a costly biological invasion that could cause damage to U.S. agricultural commodities.
Now in its 10th year, the Master’s in Applied Data Science program at New College has a proven track record of preparing graduates for data science careers that tackle local and global challenges. The program emphasizes project-based learning and hands-on experience across industries, from agriculture to finance. Graduates are working in roles that apply data science and AI-driven solutions to critical issues such as sustainable agriculture and supply chain resilience.
“The demand for data scientists who can use AI to solve real-world challenges is at an all-time high,” said New College President Richard Corcoran. “Our program equips students with the tools to make a real impact—whether they are addressing food security, climate change, or global sustainability issues. The USDA grant is a testament to the power of combining academic excellence with practical, data-driven problem-solving, preparing our students for the future.”
Taught by faculty with industry experience, the program ensures students are proficient in key technologies for data processing and predictive modeling, balancing theory with hands-on application. To learn more about the program, visit ncf.edu/grad-applied-data-science or follow it on LinkedIn.
SARASOTA, Fla. — The Applied Data Science program at New College has finalized a grant agreement totaling $97,680 from the United State Department of Agriculture that will support internships for five of its students. 2023 marks the second time the USDA has sponsored internships for New College data science students.
The funding will allow second-year graduate students to take part in semester-long paid internships next spring, working alongside USDA scientists on topics such as food safety, soil, water or crop management, climate adaptation, animal welfare or genetics. First-year data science students will complete paid internships in summer 2024.
“Applied data science at New College is a rigorous program that produces industry-ready graduates, and the caliber of internships available to our students are indicative of their readiness to contribute in the workplace,” said New College President Richard Corcoran.
“This is an excellent opportunity for our grad students to apply their data science coursework to a very specific problem in the field,” said Bernhard Klingenberg, the Director of the Applied Data Science Program and the principal investigator of the grant. “It’s a win-win for both sides. Our students learn how to work as a data scientist in a larger team, and the USDA is glad to help train the next generation of scientists proficient in AI.”
Aaron Spielman participated in an internship through the USDA during the previous grant cycle. He spent the summer with the National Soil Erosion Lab at Purdue University.
“I was able to apply many of the skills I developed in the Data Science Master’s program to a project involving the development of a deep learning model that identifies the location of subsurface tile drains from high resolution satellite imagery and environmental data,” said Spielman.
The Master’s in Applied Data Science program at New College has a 100% job placement rate within three months of graduation with a median post-graduate salary of $95,000. Fortune Magazine has ranked it among the “Best Data Science Master’s Programs” in 2022 and 2023.