Rackham Graduate School - University of Michigan

S T U D E N T P R O F I L E S10Salvatore CerchioSalvatore Cerchio fell in loveon his 20th birthday. That’snot unusual, except that theobject of his passion was, andremains, the humpback whale.He was a junior at TuftsUniversity, cruising the species’Caribbean breeding grounds aspart of a marine biology programfor undergraduates. “I got hooked,”he says. “I don’t know why, but Iwas seduced by it.”His ardor has since taken him tothe Moss Landing Marine Labs ofSan Jose State University, wherehe earned his master’s; to Hawaii,where he did research for sixyears, and to Isla Soccoro, anisland 400 miles off the west coastof Mexico, where he is about tospend his fourth winter observinga breeding population of humpbackwhales.It also, in a sense, brought himto the University of Michigan. “Irealized that if I wanted to do realresearch and make it my ownresearch, I needed to have a PhD,”he says. He also sought mentors inrelated but seemingly disparatefields.“My focus was always bioacoustics,”he says. “My master’swas on geographic variation inhumpback whale song, and I wantedto stretch out from the somewhatinsulated umbrella of themarine mammal world and workspecifically with professors thathad experience with birds andbirdsong. Often, the marine mammalfield is kind of myopic, andcoming here and getting thesebroad diverse influences has beenexcellent for my development.”One influence was RobertPayne, Professor of Zoology. “Bobworks on village indigobirds, aspecies which has a very interestingsong behavior, very convergentPhoto by Salvatore Cerchiowith humpback song behavior, acontinual variation of song overtime,” says Cerchio. “There areonly two species of birds known todo this, and humpback whales.Bob’s work figured prominently inmy discussion in my master’s thesis.I also wanted to work withJohn Mitani (Associate Professorof Anthropology), a primatologistdoing behavior and bioacousticswith primates.”Once at Michigan, he found it“a great place for evolution,” bothhis own and the field. “Cominghere was a real eye opener,” hesays. “What I’ve learned on thetheoretical basis of evolution andbehavior has really helped me out.I’ve also gotten involved in molecularwork. I had had no inclinationto do that but, after being here ayear, learning what facilities werehere, what opportunities I had andwhat I could do by applying