David A. Mann has extensive experience in bioacoustics and instrumentation development. He earned his PhD in Biological Oceanography from the MIT / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, and later served on the faculty at the University of South Florida (USF) where he studied hearing and acoustic communication in fishes and marine mammals. He founded Loggerhead Instruments in 2003.

With over 35 years of field experience, David’s work focuses on bioacoustics and animal communication, resulting in over 200 research publications.

David’s PhD thesis highlighted sound production by damselfishes, in particular the domino damselfish (Dascyllus albisella) found in the lagoon of Johnston Atoll in the Central Pacific Ocean. At the time, the island was the site of military activity; today it is exclusively a National Wildlife Refuge.

Under the tutelage of Dr. Arthur Popper at the University of Maryland, his postdoctoral fellowship focused on fish hearing. His appointment to the faculty at the USF College of Marine Science allowed an expansion into the study of sound production and hearing in other animals, including dolphins, sharks, manatees, and seals. Among other tools, he and his graduate and postdoctoral students used passive acoustics to record and study animal vocalizations to better understand their ecology, including their ranges, behaviors, and impacts of boat and other noise, as well as how these animals perceive sound.

Loggerhead Instruments was born from these experiments, giving other researchers access to the bioacoustic recording tools David created for his academic studies.