Travel award report – Presentation at the 5th International Symposium on Orcas
Since 2023, the St Leonard’s College Postgraduate Travel Awards scheme supports postgraduate students with any travel that would benefit their research and development. In 2025, it allowed Maeva Terrapon, PhD student at the School of Biology, to attend the 5th International Symposium on Orcas in Tarifa, Spain. Here is the full report:
I had the fantastic opportunity to join the killer whale research community for the 5th International Symposium on orcas, held from the 16th to the 21st of February in Tarifa, Spain. During this week filled with killer whale science, I attended a total of over 70 presentations and 5 workshops on a wide variety of themes, such as killer whale acoustics, genetics, photo-identification methods, ecology and population structure, and killer whale health and physiology.
Attended by over 150 experts, this symposium was the perfect opportunity to share my work from the PhD on stable isotopes and tropical killer whales, to discuss novel ideas and develop new collaborations. It was the occasion to talk with friends and colleagues about existing projects, and to meet new collaborators for future projects and potential post-docs.
This award contributed to helping with costs such as shared accommodation and food – indeed, meals were not included in the conference package and the city of Tarifa was relatively expensive, so this award really helped me with the costs of this symposium. In addition to learning about current studies and novel methods in this field, and sharing my research, my time at the killer whale symposium has brought new collaborations, ideas, opportunities and friends. I would like to thank the St Leonard’s Postgraduate College for their support which will benefit my PhD project and research career into the future.
