Aya Marck is a PhD student in the Animal Flight Group, Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology at the University of Haifa. She lives in the Upper Galilee with her husband and daughter. Her path to science took shape during her time at Tel-Hai College, where she combined academic studies with social activism, coordinating programs that linked scientific learning with community engagement. This experience inspired her to pursue biology, leading to an MSc at the Hebrew University, where she studied the vocal communication of the white-spectacled bulbul and discovered her passion for bioacoustics.

In her PhD, Aya focuses on nocturnal bird migration across Israel by integrating radar and bioacoustic monitoring. She develops deep learning models to classify bird species from their nocturnal flight calls, aiming to map and understand the composition and dynamics of migrating bird communities. Her research addresses the urgent need for reliable, large-scale monitoring tools to support the conservation of migratory birds, whose ecological roles are vital. She collaborates with local partners across Israel to ground her work in regional conservation efforts. Through this research, she hopes to contribute to the development of innovative monitoring methods and to the protection of migratory birds.