index.qmd

---
title: "Philip T. Patton"
about:
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  image: biopic.png
  links:
    - text: "{{< fa brands github>}} GitHub"
      href: https://github.com/philpatton
    - text: "{{< fa brands google-scholar>}} Google Scholar"
      href: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4TUtf04AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
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      href: https://bsky.app/profile/ptpatton.bsky.social
---

Phil is a PhD candidate in the [Marine Mammal Research Program](https://www.mmrphawaii.org) at the [Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology](https://www.himb.hawaii.edu), and a [NOAA QUEST Fellow](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/content/quantitative-ecology-and-socioeconomics-training-quest-program) with the [Cetacean Research Program](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/science-data/whale-and-dolphin-surveys-pacific-islands) at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center.

For his dissertation, he's researching ways to improve stock assessments of non-migratory dolphins in Hawaiʻi. This includes [automating photo-identification](https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2041-210X.14167) of these animals, understanding how these automated tools [interact with capture-recapture models](https://github.com/philpatton/autocapture), and estimating demographic parameters using cutting edge methods in capture recapture.

He did his master's with [Krishna Pacifici](https://cnr.ncsu.edu/directory/krishna-pacifici/) at North Carolina State University, where he studied ways to improve estimates of species distribution, particularly when [species interact](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-022-02825-3) and when the data contains sampling errors.