Sue Moore (scientist)

Sue E. Moore is a scientist at the University of Washington known for her research on marine mammals in the Arctic.

Education and career
Moore has a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego and an M.S. from San Diego State University. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego / Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1997 working on whales in the Arctic. Moore worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for twenty years, and was appointed director of the NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory in 2002. Moore was a member of the United States' delegation to the International Whaling Commission. As of 2021, Moore is a research scientist in the department of biology at the University of Washington. On May 25, 2022, Moore was nominated by US President Joe Biden to be a member of the US Marine Mammal Commission. The nomination was positively forwarded to the full Senate by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on December 7, 2022. The nomination was confirmed by the full US Senate on December 22, 2022.

Research
Moore is known for her research tracking marine mammals in the Arctic, including bowhead whales, fin whales, and gray whales. She has used acoustic instruments, or sound, to listen to multiple species of whales along the coast of Alaska, including a project attaching acoustic instruments to gliders and then tracking marine mammals. She has linked changes in sea ice with the habitats used by bowhead whales and defined patterns in marine mammal distributions that track climate change in the Arctic.

A list of additional publications and a biographical sketch are available on the website of the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels at the University of Washington, https://ecosystemsentinels.org/sue-moore/

Awards and honors
In 2020, Moore was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in recognition of her work in the Arctic. In 2020, the International Arctic Science Committee awarded the IASC Medal for "exceptional and sustained contributions to the understanding of the Arctic" to Moore.