Insect pollinator nutritional & behavioral ecology
This January, most members of the Tufts Pollinator Initiative (TPI) traveled to Costa Rica as part of Tufts University’s Tropical Ecology and Conservation course. In this course, students spend the fall semester preparing a proposal and planning a research project for the tropics. Over winter break, the students visit the tropics to carry out their […]
As a kid, I thought that all scientists dressed in a white coat and goggles, ready to mix chemicals and use fancy equipment in a lab. I didn’t realize that in playing outdoors, catching insects, and asking questions, I was doing science. Now as a field biologist, I am constantly inspired by the natural curiosity […]
2018 was a busy year for me: I successfully defended my PhD, I got married, and I started a new job studying a new study system! Read about my (and other’s!) 2018 research highlight and favorite conference/field experience on the Insectes Souciaux blog here.
Just south of Olympia, WA, my new field site is a lively 180-acre prairie. There are queen bumble bees searching for nests, barn swallows doing acrobatics, and some of the strangest flowers I have ever seen. I half expect the Alice-in-Wonderland-esque flowers to break into song. This week, I had the opportunity to write my […]
Being a small, squishy, slow-moving caterpillar is tough. Caterpillars are a protein-packed snack for carnivorous insects such as wasps and spiders, some ants, and birds. For my post-doc, I’m studying an ant-caterpillar symbiosis. A “symbiosis” is an interaction between two organisms of different species. Insect pollinators and plants, clownfish and anemones, us and the microbes […]
“The hive was like Grand Central Station at rush hour. Commuters moving in every direction, purposeful, industrious, and functioning in organized chaos.” Such an eloquent and accurate description of a honey bee hive on a warm summer day. As 2017 comes to a close, there are countdowns and “best of” lists almost everywhere you look. […]
All the way back in June, I had the opportunity to attend the 2017 Communicating Science National Workshop. As part of that conference, I participated in a Story Collider workshop (which was incredible). And now, I am honored to say that I told a story at a local Story Collider show and my story made […]
Back in June, I attended the National Communicating Science Conference (#ComSciCon) in Cambridge, MA and one of the many awesome people I met was Sadie Witkowski! Sadie is the host of a podcast, PhDrinking, where she interviews a scientist about their research over a drink. I had the pleasure of being one of Sadie’s interview-ees […]
I was featured on Faces of Fieldwork, a campaign to put a human face on scientific fieldwork. Being a scientist doesn’t mean you have to work in a lab. If you’re a field scientist, I encourage you to share your story with Faces of Fieldwork–let’s change the image of “scientist” from people in lab coats […]
This past summer, I raised honey bees on different diets on the Tufts Vet School campus in Grafton, MA. I am interested in how those different diets may, or may not, have affected the community composition of the honey bee gut microbiome. The honey bee gut is full of bacteria that may be beneficial to […]
Providence Pollinator Lab 