A transdisciplinary scholar, Andrea Lynn believes that science shifts policy, after stories stir human hearts. Andrea explores the narwhal’s acoustic habitat, the music in melting Arctic ice, vocalizations of endemic Arctic marine mammals, and the songs of humpback whales to further positive climate policy. Researching Arctic Ocean underwater soundscapes, she investigates the impacts of anthropogenic noise in the ocean, especially the effects of underwater radiated noise (URN) from ships. Her research in the High Arctic, including at the North Pole, may help explain the changing composition of underwater Arctic Ocean soundscapes. She also investigates narwhal occurrence in the region using sound, seeking to learn the extent of their northernmost range as the ocean warms. 

Education and informational antecedent behavioral strategies are crucial to affecting ocean noise policy in Andrea's view, and her research has demonstrated that increased awareness may impact pro-environmental behavior (PEB). She is convinced that hearts and minds can shift. Andrea teaches compassion-centered courses as an instructor at Florida Gulf Coast University, working with the university's ROCK Center to promote compassion, kindness, and empathy through education, action, and research.

The training and temperament of a journalist, Andrea writes often about global environmental change, wondering at the same time if writing about the “Earth-born world,” the “more-than-human world,” is separating her further from it as cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram posits in The Spell of the Sensuous.

During her Arctic Circle Expeditionary Residency, Andrea explored her fascination with the acoustics of ice and the aspects of naturally versus unnaturally occurring sounds as she contemplated the role of thermoacoustics—heat into sound into energy (the interaction between temperature, density and pressure variations of acoustic waves). During this exploration Andrea wondered if it would be possible to utilize vibrations to teach refrigerators to sing in order to reduce the detrimental super greenhouse gases refrigerants emit. She hypothesized that this could also lift the world’s happiness as measured on the “World Happiness Report," a publication of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, by muting and transforming mechanical noise. The 2019 film, The Sound of Silence, further explains this ideal. 

Andrea earned her PhD in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England, her MFA in Writing and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies and her bachelor’s degree from Truman State University. She has held senior leadership roles in both the journalism and business divisions of four media companies. Her roots in newspapers, Andrea began her career as a cub reporter and remains steadfast regarding the essential role of a free press—as enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—for the well-being of society.

For Andrea, storytelling in all its forms is the preservation of our interconnectedness.