Associate Professor McCauley has been working in the field of bioacoustics and impacts of sound on marine fauna for 30 years. He is currently based at Curtin University with the Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST). Amongst his many projects he has

• researched the sounds made by marine invertebrates, fish, whales and dolphins;
• carried out observations and experimentation of the impacts of sound on marine fauna including plankton, squid, scallops, lobster, fish, sea turtles and great whales;
• characterised the sound fields produced by a myriad of industry sources;
• used sound transmission modelling to predict sound fields from various marine sources;
• overseen a three year program on the use of acoustic sonar backscatter to characterise seabed benthic communities;
• ran a multi-institution, multi-disciplinary  program on the use of the Perth Canyon by pygmy blue whales;
• established and runs a program of underwater acoustic observatories with stations in NSW, SW Victoria, SA and Western Australia under the Integrated Marine Observing System program;
• been a principal investigator in a study of the response of humpback whales to seismic survey signals;
• been involved in several programs studying fish communities and population trends using passive and active acoustics; and
• completed scores of Industry funded programs of using sea noise to monitor fauna near petroleum developments.