After her graduate work, Miksis-Olds worked at Pennsylvania State University from 2007 until 2016, when she moved to the University of New Hampshire.[4] She is currently the director of the Center for Acoustics Research and Education at the University of New Hampshire.[5]
In 2016, Miksis-Olds was elected a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America,[6]"for contributions to underwater acoustic noise research and the integration of acoustics into marine ecology".
From 2016 to 2018, Miksis-Olds was on the scientific committee of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment,[7] a group of researchers working on ocean soundscapes and how sound impacts marine organisms. Miksis-Olds is also on the board at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership where her term ends in October 2021.[8]
Research
Miksis-Olds' graduate research characterized the pattern of sound production from manatees[9] and measured sound levels in grassbeds inhabited by manatees which revealed that, all else being equal, manatees opt for grassbeds with lower noise levels.[10] Miksis-Olds' research determined that manatees increase their activity in the presence of sounds similar to boats[11] and they alter their behavior with periods of higher sound levels connected to increased feeding activity.[12]
Miksis-Olds has used sound to track the location of marine mammals in the ocean. In the Arctic, Miksis-Olds developed and deployed low power sampling devices to provide data on the presence of whales[13] and she has a decade-long data set tracking different species of marine mammals in the Bering Sea.[14] Miksis-Olds has also used acoustic methods to track seals in the Bering Sea where she connected the presence or absence of seals with the amount of sea ice.[15] Using hydrophone data from the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty International Monitoring System, Miksis-Olds estimated the biodiversity in the near-field vicinity of three hydrophones.[16] The data are from hydrophones that are part of the system used for monitoring for nuclear explosions and Susan Parks, Miksis-Olds, and Samuel Denes developed a metric that uses sound to assess biodiversity and found correlations between their metric and the number of whale calls around the hydrophones.[16]
Miksis-Olds examines soundscapes in the ocean, particularly the combination of ambient sound and sound produced by people, to define how marine mammals respond to changes in sound[17] and was part of a collaboration that identified an increase in sound levels in the Indian Ocean[18] which can have a negative impact on marine mammals.[19][20]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miksis-Olds and others have been expanding the global network of hydrophones that can track changes in ambient sound in the ocean.[21][22] Miksis-Olds is leading the development of software that will allow researchers to share and analyze the data being generated by this network of hydrophones.[23][24][25][26]
Medwin Prize, Acoustical Society of America (2017)[30] for "effective use of sound in the discovery and understanding of physical and biological parameters and processes in the sea"
^Miksis, Jennifer L. (2000). The Use of Heart Rate as a Behavioral Response Measure in Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops Truncatus: A Thesis in Biology (M.S.). University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
