Megan A. Cimino

University of California, Santa Cruz, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Megan A. Cimino is a marine scientist whose research sits at the intersection of ocean technology, bioacoustics, and marine animal ecology. Her work focuses on developing and deploying innovative autonomous platforms to monitor and understand the distribution, behavior, and ecology of marine species across diverse ocean environments. Cimino has made notable contributions to the application of autonomous wave gliders — mobile, wave-powered ocean vehicles — as dynamic tools for passive acoustic monitoring. Her 2019 study demonstrated that these platforms could effectively map fish chorus distributions across Southern California, moving beyond the limitations of fixed monitoring arrays that require prior knowledge of species locations. Complementing this, her 2018 research established the detection efficiency of acoustic biotelemetry sensors mounted on Wave Gliders, advancing the capacity to track tagged animals in coastal ecosystems with greater spatial flexibility. Both papers have accumulated 24 citations each, reflecting their value to the growing field of mobile ocean observing. Together, Cimino's contributions are helping reshape how researchers monitor cryptic and mobile marine species, offering scalable, cost-effective alternatives to traditional stationary arrays and expanding scientific capacity to study biophysical relationships in dynamic marine environments.