Michael Noonan, Ph.D., is at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY where he is Professor in the Department of Biology, Founder and Chair of the Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation undergraduate major, Founder and Director of the Institute for the Study of Human-Animal Relations and Founder and Director of the Canisius Ambassadors for Conservation.
As an scholar, his research focuses on the welfare and behavior of animals held in zoological institutions. Most recently, his projects have investigated social-cognition in captive killer whales.
With his students he wrote, produced and directed an award-winning produced a DVD, Elephas Maximus: The biology and conservation of the Asian elephant, which won the Animal Behavior Society Film of the Year (non-commercial) in 2005.