Dear MARMAN, We are excited to announce the following workshop at the SMM Conference in Puerto Rico on Saturday, October 17th 2026: *Innovations in modelling cetacean populations:* https://www.smmconference.org/workshops/#1776734102839-9aaa367e-6753 This workshop aims to bring together early career and established researchers to explore opportunities and challenges with the latest technological and statistical innovations in cetacean population modelling and abundance estimation, and discuss the future direction of this field. Estimating abundance and completing population assessments are fundamental components of conservation research and managing cetacean populations. Emerging data sources provide new opportunities, address limitations in previous methods and provide more data for many cryptic species. Furthermore, new methods and statistical modelling approaches are being developed that provide novel insights from more ‘traditional’ data sources. These approaches tackle some of the historical challenges stemming from data collection in marine environments and cetacean behavior. In addition, climate change is leading to increasing environmental variability and extreme events, creating issues for population assessments which have traditionally treated demographic parameters as static over time. As we look forward to the future direction of the field, this workshop will consider how we can account for these increasing phenomena. The workshop will be split into three sections which will each consist of a series of short talks from subject experts followed by small-group discussions. The sections will be (1) technical innovations providing new data sources (e.g. high-throughput genetic sequencing, environmental DNA, etc.), (2) new statistical approaches (e.g. density estimation from passive acoustic monitoring, spatial-capture-recapture models, data integration etc.), and (3) future directions and accounting for climate variability. A full agenda with speakers and finalised topics will be sent to all participants before the workshop. This workshop will be a unique opportunity for researchers interested in emerging techniques in cetacean population modelling to share their expertise, learn from fellow researchers and look forward to the evolution of this field of research as we address critical conservation challenges and seek to effectively manage threats to cetacean populations. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or if you are conducting research which would be a good fit for discussion in the workshop we'd love to hear about it too. We hope to see you there! Georgina Whittome & Zoe Rand