Dear colleagues, It is our sad duty to inform that on the 29th of July 2025, our colleague Mel Cosentino passed away at the Søholm Hospice, Aarhus, following a long and complicated battle with leukaemia. She was until the last accompanied by her loving and loyal partner, Henrik; her mother and sister – flown over from Argentina – and her long-time close friend Alex. Mel was born and grew up in Argentina under very modest conditions. From an early age she showed a keen interest for the world and nature around her and against all odds started to study marine biology in Patagonia. However, due to the financial collapse in Argentina in 2001 she had to give up her studies. She and Vivian, her husband at the time struggled to survive working as farmhands – first in Argentina, later in the Republic of Ireland. Later they moved to Spain and Mel was able to finish her bachelor’s degree in marine biology. She then moved to Scotland where she sustained herself working in a supermarket and completed her master’s degree from the University of Aberdeen. Through all these difficult years Mel maintained her interest in and love for marine mammals through unpaid volunteer work as field observer and assistant. She worked all over the world and through this gained an enormous network of colleagues and close friends, often with a very large overlap. Common was a deep appreciation for her skills and intellectual acuity, but also her warm personality and nerdy humour. Her persistence was finally rewarded in 2016 when she started a PhD project on harbour porpoises at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Her project was completed in cooperation with Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University and quickly revealed a highly fruitful synergy between Mel’s extraordinary analytical skills and the enormous body of acoustic data collected over many years by colleagues at our department. After she received her PhD in 2020 she was employed at what is now the Department of Ecoscience; at the time of her death as a Postdoc on a project about acoustic communication in porpoises. Among her most significant scientific contributions is the best software ever developed for identification and classification of porpoise sounds in underwater recordings and impressive syntheses and results based on data collected by herself and countless other volunteers on whale safari boats and other platforms from many parts of the world, including Andenes, Norway. Mel was an outspoken atheist and with her sharp intellect she was fully aware of her own situation and how our life in the end is governed by stochastic events. She demanded clear answers from her medical doctors regarding her situation and thus knew exactly which two mutations in her blood-producing tissue was the cause of her illness and imminent death. She clearly expressed being settled with her fate and was content that Aarhus would become her final destination. With the far too early passing of Mel we have lost an extraordinary scientific mind and a highly valued colleague and friend. She left us as her full scientific potential was finally unfolding, and she worked until the last days to pass on data and unfinished manuscripts to her colleagues – not because she felt obliged but because of her passion and love to science and the animals she studied. Her story shows that with persistence and passion there is a way in science but also that this path can be very long and demand large sacrifices. She will be missed by colleagues and friends over the entire world and leaves behind a large and permanent imprint on the bioacoustics community. More than that, she will leave a large porpoise-shaped hole in our hearts. Honoured be her memory. Jakob Tougaard, Peter T. Madsen and Signe Sveegaard ************************************************************************* Jakob Tougaard, Ph.D. Professor in Marine Conservation Ecology Department of Ecoscience, section for Marine Mammal Research Aarhus University Building 1131 C.F. Møller’s Allé 3 DK-8000 Aarhus Denmark Phone: +45 4098 4585 E-mail: jat@ecos.au.dk<mailto:jat@ecos.au.dk> CVR/VAT: 31119103 EAN: 5798000419988