Morgan Ziegenhorn, Ph.D.
Morgan Ziegenhorn (they/she) joined Manomet in November 2025 as a Research Associate in Data Science and Acoustic Ecology. Prior to this role, Morgan worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Universite de Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada in close collaboration with Manomet scientists, conducting groundbreaking research in the analysis of acoustic data sets applied to large scale shorebird monitoring.
At Manomet, Morgan will continue to work in collaboration with Manomet’s USFWS and Canadian partners on cutting edge machine learning and advanced statistical analyses of audio recordings of shorebirds in the Arctic. Their current research in this field includes improving automated detection and classification of Arctic shorebird vocalizations, species distribution modelling, and abundance estimation. Along with their colleagues, they are using these approaches to augment Manomet’s large scale monitoring of breeding shorebirds and explore whether audio monitoring can improve or replace visual observations of breeding shorebird density.
Morgan obtained their PhD. in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, focusing on passive acoustic monitoring of toothed whales in Hawaii. Prior to this, they completed a B.A. in Integrative Biology—Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at the University of California, Berkeley., with a minor in Creative Writing.
Morgan is based in Sacramento, California and enjoys running, exploring the outdoors with their partner and dog, and occasionally publishing poetry.