Thomas Mattern

Thomas Mattern has spent two decades convincing penguins to wear increasingly sophisticated electronics – and building those electronics himself when necessary. A movement ecologist with a tech habit, he created the animal-borne PenguCam, uses drones to rethink seabird surveys, and is developing app-based community monitoring systems so humans can keep up, too. His research spans bio-logging, population dynamics, and the ways people interfere with wildlife. Although rooted in New Zealand’s penguins, he also works with Humboldt and Magellanic penguins in South America. Thomas co-leads the long-term Tawaki Project and chairs the Tawaki Trust, championing Aotearoa’s tawaki/crested penguins. As the Oceania representative of the Global Penguin Society, he also works across all of New Zealand’s penguin species – including helping communities keep tabs on the breeding antics and foraging adventures of kororā/little penguins.