Saving marine mammals? Sounds like a plan for this Cork scientist Emer Keaveney is the Cork marine biologist behind a new acoustic project that will record marine mammals and explore how noise pollution of the oceans is affecting them, writes ELLIE O’BYRNE Marine biologist Emer Keaveney, from Blackrock, who is behind a new acoustic project. Ellie O’Byrne MARINE biology might be one of the most over-romanticised careers on the planet, but Cork woman Emer Keaveney is here to inject a shot of realism into how people view her job. For her UCC undergraduate thesis, Emer spent three months “washing seal poo, basically,” she says with a laugh.