Poole, Joyce, 1956-

Joyce Hatheway Poole (born 1 May 1956) is a biologist, ethologist, conservationist, and co-founder/scientific director of ElephantVoices. She is a world authority on elephant reproductive, communicative, and cognitive behavior. Poole graduated from Smith College in 1979 with a degree in biological sciences and received her PhD in animal behavior from the University of Cambridge in 1982. She began her research with Cynthia Moss in Amboseli in 1975, focusing on male elephants, which culminated in her Cambridge dissertation on the sexual and aggressive phenomenon of musth in male elephants, entitled, Musth and male-male competition in the African elephant. In the mid-1980s Poole and Katherine (Katy) Payne worked together in Amboseli studying elephant vocal communication. This collaboration led to the discovery that African elephants use powerful, very low frequency calls to communicate with one another over long distances. Poole has worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University, head of the Elephant Program at Kenya Wildlife Service, and Scientific Director of ElephantVoices, which she co-founded with husband Petter Granli in 2002. Over decades Poole has been a vocal advocate for elephant conservation and welfare. She has received several awards for her work, including the Smith College Medal and Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award.