Rate My Professor Doug Cato

Professor Doug Cato serves as Adjunct Professor in the University of Sydney Marine Studies Institute, part of the Faculty of Science. Affiliated with the Defence Science and Technology Group, he has made seminal contributions to marine acoustics over several decades. Cato began his scientific career as a geophysicist before joining the Royal Australian Navy Research Laboratory as an oceanographer, where a lecture inspired his shift to ocean acoustics focused on submarine detection. His early work examined environmental factors influencing sonar performance, such as ambient noise variations, temperature gradients, and sea floor effects, developing predictive models that account for detection range fluctuations by factors of ten within short periods. Investigating biological contributions to underwater soundscapes, he analyzed noises from whales, fish, and shrimps, enhancing comprehension of ocean ambient noise near Australia.

As Chief Scientist of the Behavioural Response of Australian Humpback Whales to Seismic Surveys (BRAHSS) program—the largest global study on noise impacts on whale behavior—Cato led a major collaboration involving the University of Sydney, University of Queensland, University of Newcastle, Curtin University, the Australian Marine Mammal Centre, and industry partners. Funded partly by international oil and gas research consortia and the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the project conducted four large-scale field experiments, tracking whale surface and underwater behaviors before, during, and after exposure to seismic air guns using theodolites, acoustic arrays, and tags. Key publications include Dunlop et al. (2015) 'The Behavioural Response of Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) to a 20 Cubic Inch Air Gun' in Aquatic Mammals; Dunlop et al. (2016) 'Response of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) to ramp-up of a small experimental air gun array' in Marine Pollution Bulletin; and Cato et al. (2016) 'Addressing challenges in studies of behavioral responses of whales to noise' in The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life II. Earlier foundational work includes Cato (1976) 'Ambient sea noise in waters near Australia' in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. In 2012, he received the Minister's Achievement Award in Defence Science for advancements in whale acoustics. Cato's research informs regulatory exclusion zones for seismic surveys and naval activities, mitigating anthropogenic noise effects on marine mammals, and extends to ocean soundscapes as habitat health indicators.