Joe collecting midshipman from a nest.

Biography

Joseph Sisneros is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and an adjunct Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. He is also affiliate faculty of the UW Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center and the UW Graduate program in Neuroscience.  His research and teaching span auditory neuroscience, sensory biology, and animal behavior, with a particular emphasis on the neural and hormonal mechanisms underlying acoustic communication in aquatic vertebrates.

 

Dr. Sisneros received his B.S. in Marine Biology (1988) and M.S. in Biology (1993) from California State University, Long Beach, where he was mentored by the late Dr. Donald Nelson (1937–1997), a pioneer in the study of shark behavior. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology in 1999 from the Florida Institute of Technology, where his doctoral research focused on the neural basis of electroreception in elasmobranch fishes under the mentorship of Dr. Timothy Tricas, a leading animal behaviorist and neuroethologist (now at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa).
       
Following his PhD, Dr. Sisneros his completed postdoctoral training from 1999 to 2004 in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew H. Bass in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. During this period, his research examined seasonal and steroid-dependent plasticity in the auditory system of fishes, work that helped establish key links between reproductive endocrinology and sensory processing. He joined the University of Washington faculty in 2004 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology (Animal Behavior area), was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010, and advanced to full Professor in 2016. In recognition of his contributions to acoustics and auditory biology, he was elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in 2016.

​

In addition to his research and administrative leadership, Dr. Sisneros is deeply engaged in scholarly publishing and international scientific service. He serves as Series Editor for the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research (SHAR) and as Associate Editor of Animal Bioacoustics for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). He has also been a co-organizer of the international conference series The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life, including meetings held in Budapest (2013), Dublin (2016), The Hague (2019), Berlin (2022), and Prague (2025), reflecting his longstanding commitment to advancing interdisciplinary research on underwater sound and its biological impacts.

​

Recent Publications:
 

Popper AN, Sisneros JA, Lepper P, and KJ Vigness-Raposa. (In Press). Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life IV, Springer Nature.

​​

Balebail S, Chhaya V, Veith J, and JA Sisneros. (In Press). Using finite element modeling to understand how fish resolve the 180-degree ambiguity in directional hearing. In: Popper AN, Sisneros JA, Lepper P, and KJ Vigness-Raposa (Eds). The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life IV. Springer Nature.

​​

Berger EK, Rogers LS, Sisneros JA, and JL Davis. (In Press). Digital reconstruction of the fish inner ear reveals a three-dimensional vector landscape of directional sensitivity. In: Popper AN, Sisneros JA, Lepper P, and KJ Vigness-Raposa (Eds). The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life IV. Springer Nature.

​​

Tricas TC, Sisneros JA, and S Michael. (In Press). The little “ziix cöcocotni”: How male round stingrays locate mates and females form groups. In: Klimley AP, Ainley DG, and JT Harvey (Eds). Complex Behaviour and Cognition Exhibited by Species in the Marine Environment. Springer Nature.

​​

Michael S, Tricas TC, and JA Sisneros. (In Press). Reproductive behavior and social dynamics of the round stingray (Urobatis halleri) in the Gulf of California. In: Klimley AP, Ainley DG, and JT Harvey (Eds). Complex Behaviour and Cognition Exhibited by Species in the Marine Environment. Springer Nature.

​​