Peter M. Scheifele- Biography
VITAE (PDF)
Peter is a Vietnam
veteran and retired Navy Lieutenant Commander. Having entered the Navy
as an enlisted man he served in various ratings. Peter also began working
with marine animals while in the Navy and was the Director of Training for
the Canine Obedience Training Club of Hawaii where he also judged AKC
obedience and tracking trials. After eleven years he became a
Commissioned Limited Duty Officer and Naval Oceanography Officer specializing
in marine mammal bioacoustic research. During his final ten years he
worked at the Naval Underwater
Systems Center
in New London, Connecticut
and at Mystic Marinelife Aquarium where he was Chief Scientist for the Navy
Marine Mammal Technology Research Program at NUSC and eventually, Head
Trainer at Mystic Aquarium. It was in this command that he received a
presidential award from president Busch Sr. for his pioneering work in
dolphin bioacoustic research as it related to transducers and fetal
ultrasound and was inducted into the Order of the Decibel. He retired
after 23 years of active service. After retiring he trained and worked
narcotics dogs for the U.S. Coast Guard for drug interdiction and research.
In 1991 Peter began working at the National
Undersea Research
Center for the North
Atlantic and Great Lakes at the University
of Connecticut as Director of
education and outreach programs and Marine Operations Manager. He is
presently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Communications Science
Department neuroaudiology laboratory at the University
of Connecticut, Assistant
Professor at the University of Rhode
Island in the Communicative Disorders
Department (neuroaudiology) and Research Associate/Assistant Professor
In-Residence in the Animal Sciences Department, Animal Bioacoustics and
Neuroaudiology section at the University
of Connecticut. He specializes in
neuroaudiology and electrophysiology. He has also taught at the American
School for the Deaf on behalf of
the University of Connecticut
under a National Science Foundation grant.
Peter’s specialty regards
integrated research into the Lombard Response in humans as it relates to
central auditory processing and Attention Deficit Disorder in school children
as well as marine mammal, exotic and companion animal bioacoustic models of
human neuroaudiology and central auditory processing systems. He also
presently conducts research on the effects of low-frequency noise on the
Beluga Whales of the St. Lawrence River Estuary for the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans, Canada,
and canine hearing and the study of central auditory system relationships to
cognitive processing in animals using electrophysiological techniques. He is also a collaborator in the study of
animal vocalizations related to stress using advanced neural computer model
techniques under the Dolittle Project grant from the National Science
Foundation.
Peter has been
involved with animal and marine mammal bioacoustic research and training for
28 years and human neuroaudiology research for 8 years. Peter’s
degrees are in Physics, Oceanography, and human and animal Bioacoustics
(minor in speech and hearing sciences) with a medical elective in head and
neck anatomy and an elective in mechanical engineering. He received his
AA from the University of Hawaii, BS, MS and PhD degrees and engineering
elective from the University of Connecticut and did his medical elective
(medical research, gross anatomy) at Mount Sinai. He is married to Lesa
Collins-Scheifele and has two children; Peter age 13 and Samantha, age
12. They live in Norwich, Connecticut.
