David Gruber

David Gruber is the Founder & President of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), a nonprofit organization and interdisciplinary scientific and conservation initiative that is applying advanced machine learning and state-of-the-art gentle robotics to translate the communication of sperm whales. CETI has partnered with MOTH on an endeavor to explore the legal opportunities and risks of AI-assisted translations of the language of whales and other species. Gruber is Distinguished Professor of Biology and Environmental Sciences at the City University of New York & The CUNY Graduate Center. His research bridges animal communication, climate science, marine biology, microbiology, and molecular biology, and his inventions include technology to perceive the underwater world from the perspective of marine animals (including a “shark-eye camera”). His long-standing collaboration with the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory has led to the engineering of some of the gentlest and minimally invasive robots to better understand and interact with life in the ocean.