Diana Reiss: Who is training who?

Early in her career researching dolphin intelligence Diana Reiss began wondering, "Who is training who?"

Diana Reiss, a cognitive psychologist and a marine mammal scientist, is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Dr. Reiss's research focuses on dolphin cognition, communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of intelligence. Much of her work has investigated vocal communication and vocal learning in dolphins using observational and experimental approaches. She pioneered the use of underwater keyboards with dolphins to investigate their cognitive and communicative abilities. Dr. Reiss and her colleagues also demonstrated that bottlenose dolphins and an Asian elephants possess the rare ability for mirror self-recognition previously thought to be restricted to humans and great apes. Her advocacy work in conservation and animal welfare includes the protection of dolphins in the tuna-fishing industry and her current efforts to bring an end to the killing of dolphins in the drive hunts in Japan. Dr. Reiss's work has been featured in hundreds of articles in international and national journals, science magazines, television segments and features, and newspaper articles. Her book, The Dolphin in the Mirror: exploring dolphin minds and saving dolphin lives was published in 2011.