COLLABORATORS
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Lawrence R. Heaney, Ph.D.
Negaunee Curator of Mammals, Field Museum of Natural History Google Scholar / ResearchGate / CV Larry's primary research interest is in the evolutionary origin, ecological maintenance, and conservation of mammalian diversity in island ecosystems. He began conducting research in the Philippines in 1981, and has worked with teams of researchers (both foreign and Filipino) in many remote areas, where they have documented patterns of diversity along elevational and disturbance gradients and inferred the historical processes that have led to the development of this highly distinctive fauna. This has included training for dozens of young Filipino biologists in the Philippines and the US, and led to the founding of the Biodiversity Conservation Society of the Philippines. Larry currently teaches and advises students at the University of Chicago and University of the Philippines, and is a Research Fellow at the Philippine's National Museum of Natural History. |
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Danilo S. Balete, MSc.
Google Scholar / Wikipedia Bio Danny Balete graduated from the University of the Philippines in Los Banos in 1988. Through 1991, he worked with the Haribon Foundation on a major re-design and expansion of the Philippine protected areas system. He first worked with FMNH in 1989, on a survey of Sibuyan Island that ultimately yielded 4 previously unknown, endemic species of mammals and resulted in the creation of a new national park. From 1991 to 1994, he served as the assistant instructor for an intensive training program for young Filipino professional biologists, based at FMNH and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. After completing his MSc degree at University of Illinois at Chicago in 1995, he worked until 2004 on a series of UN, World Bank, EU, and Nordic-funded projects conducting biodiversity research and promoting further expansion of the protected area system. From 2004 until his death in 2017, Danny worked with the Philippine Mammal Project as Field Team Leader, typically spending 3-4 months each year in the field, several months advising NGOs and government agencies, and 3-4 months at the Field Museum on mammal research. Danny died on 1 July 2017 at age 56. For further information about Danny, including his Curriculum Vitae and list of over 65 publications, click here. |
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Eric Rickart, Ph.D.
Curator of Vertebrates, Utah Museum of Natural History Google Scholar / ResearchGate Eric Rickart is Curator of Vertebrates at the Utah Museum of Natural History. He developed a strong interest in natural history and mammals early in life, learning taxidermy and starting his own collection of small mammals when he was in junior high school. These interests were strongly reinforced when he attended the University of Kansas for his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees, where he worked and conducted research on mammalian ecology and evolution in the Museum of Natural History. Eric began working with the Philippine Mammal Project in 1987, often including the Project's field expeditions to poorly known areas, with a special interest in the highly diverse and unusual native rodents. He has led studies dealing with the distribution and ecology of mammals along disturbance gradients where native and non-native pests rats interact, descriptions of new species discovered during the project, diversity patterns along elevational gradients, and chromosomal variation among species. |
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Phillip A. Alviola, M. Sc.
Vertebrate Curator, Museum of Natural History, University of the Philippines - Los Baños Google Scholar / ResearchGate Phillip Alviola grew up as the son of a biologist at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños (about 40 miles south of Manila), where he developed strong interests in wildlife by helping his father with field studies. He graduated from the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor's Degree in Biology, followed by a Master's Degree in Wildlife Studies (2008). During those years and subsequently, Phillip worked as a field biologist with the Philippine Mammal Project and many conservation organizations in the Philippines, pursuing a special interest in the diverse species of bats. He currently is an Associate Professor and Curator of the Mammal Collection at the Museum of Natural History, University of the Philippines at Los Baños. |
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Maria Louella Dolar, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor, Silliman University, Philippines Research Biologist – Tropical Marine Research and Conservation, San Diego California ResearchGate As a faculty member in the Biology Department at Silliman University, Philippines in the early 1980s, Louella Dolar started her first conservation work teaching forest and wildlife conservation to the elementary school pupils in Dumaguete. Later, she started a captive breeding program for the endangered Visayan spotted deer, Rusa alfredi, and together with Ruth Utzurrum, founded the Center for Tropical Conservation Studies (Centrop) at Silliman. With assistance from the Haribon Foundation, the IUCN and the Field Museum, the captive breeding program extended to include Visayan warty pigs, wild cats, and bats. Later, Louella obtained training at the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian Institution to learn about cetaceans, which were almost unknown in the Philippines at the time. The new studies yielded the discovery of several species new to the country, and resulted in the passing of national laws to protect cetaceans, establishment of the Tañon Strait Sea Scape, and the transfer of expertise to other enthusiasts and students extending to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Louella’s current research interest includes cetacean population biology, ecology, and by-catch, and fishery biology. She is also involved in community-based conservation education. |
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Mariano Roy M. Duya, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines - Diliman Google Scholar / ResearchGate Mariano Roy M. Duya holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines Diliman, and a MSc degree in Wildlife Studies from the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños. Aloy is currently an Assistant Professor and Curator of the Vertebrate Museum of the Institute of Biology, UP Diliman. His research interest is on taxonomy, biogeography, and ecology of wildlife vertebrates, particularly terrestrial mammals. He is currently a member of the IUCN SSC Small Mammal Specialist Group and a member of the Philippine RedList Committee (PRLC) of the Department Environment and Natural Resources- Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB). He chairs the mammal technical working group of the said committee. He is also a Research Associate at the Field Museum of Natural History, in the Life Sciences Section of the Negaunee Integrative Research Center. |
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Melizar V. Duya
University Researcher 1, Institute of Biology, College of Science, University of the Philippines Google Scholar / ResearchGate Melizar V. Duya is a University Researcher at the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines Diliman. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños. She is a Senior Biologist for several projects, initially developed under the late Dr. Perry S. Ong, in the Biodiversity Research Laboratory at the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines Diliman. She has authored and co-authored local and international scientific publications on Philippine wildlife including description of new species, often as a collaborator in the Philippine Mammal Project. She also played a major role in the development and identification of the Key Biodiversity Areas in the Philippines. |
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Jacob A. Esselstyn, Ph.D.
Curator of Mammals, Museum of Natural Science and Associate Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University | Google Scholar / ResearchGate Jake is a mammalian systematist with general interests in evolutionary biology and biogeography. His research explores questions of phylogeny, island biogeography, and taxonomy, and his students’ interests expand his research group's efforts to include topics such as co-evolution and community ecology. All of their research relies heavily on voucher specimens held in natural history museums. As such, he places a premium on contributing to the growth, use, and value of museum collections. His museum-based studies began in the Philippines, and in recent years he and his lab group have expanded to include field-based research in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Southeastern U.S. |
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Pedro C. Gonzales, MSc.
Former Head, Zoology Section, National Museum of the Philippines Pedro “Pete” Gonzales (1932-2019) was a mammalogist and ornithologist who began working in the Zoology Section of the National Museum in 1957, which he continued until his retirement in 1997. Along the way, he earned a MSc degree from the University of Queensland, and also studied at the University of Hawaii. His broad interest in collection-based research led him to collaborate with many colleagues on studies of mammals, birds, and some invertebrates. Much of his work contributed substantially to conservation of Philippine biodiversity, and he was a founding member of the Biodiversity Conservation Society of the Philippines. Pete was one of the first collaborators in the Field Museum’s Philippine Mammal Project, advising Heaney on field work in 1981 and 1984 and joining the field team on Catanduanes Island and Mt. Isarog in the late 1980s. Members of the Philippine Mammal Project named a species of striped earth-mouse from Mt. Isarog, Chrotomys gonzalesi, in his honor in 1991. |
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Paul D. Heideman, Ph.D.
Boles-Ash Distinguished Professor of Biology, Willliam & Mary Google Scholar / ResearchGate Paul Heideman is an evolutionary physiologist at William & Mary. His research interests have been in understanding how reproductive patterns evolve and (more recently) how students can best learn. He began working with the Philippine Mammal Project during his doctoral work at the University of Michigan, beginning in 1981, directed by Larry Heaney and Phil Myers, with his dissertation focused on seasonality of reproduction in Philippine fruit bats. He found a diversity of reproductive patterns both within and between species that led to subsequent research on the evolution of reproductive timing in other species outside the Philippines. Paul continued in the field with the Philippine Mammal Project until 1988, and continued publishing on Philippine mammals through 1998. |
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Rainer Hutterer, Ph.D.
Curator Emeritus, Vertebrates, Research Museum Alexander Koenig ResearchGate Rainer is a retired museum curator interested in the diversity of mammals, with a focus on small mammals (shrews, rodents, bats) of Asia and Africa. He is also interested in historical biology and archaeozoology. Patterns of evolution and extinction of vertebrates and gastropods in the Atlantic Islands and in North Africa are the subject of current long-term projects. Rainer has focused his studies in the Philippines on shrews, naming several new species and one new genus (Palawanosorex). |
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Nina R. Ingle, Ph.D.
Nina has found much joy being in Philippine forests, especially when working with bats. She also found (to her surprise) that examining and comparing museum specimens of bats and small mammals also brings joy. She spent months on Mt. Makiling in Los Banos catching bats with subcanopy nets for her MS thesis, and years on Mt. Kitanglad comparing fruit bats with birds and wind as seed dispersal agents for her dissertation, both at Cornell University. She joined Philippine Mammal Project vertebrate surveys on Sibuyan Island, and helped gather information needed for having it declared as a protected area. She was a president of the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Philippines (which became the Biodiversity Conservation Society of the Philippines) and editor of the Society’s Proceedings. In recent years Nina has been focusing on environmental education, particularly on the development of learning materials in indigenous languages. |
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Sharon Jansa, Ph.D.
Professor, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota Google Scholar / ResearchGate Sharon's research is primarily concerned with the systematics and biogeography of localized mammalian radiations. She is currently focusing on three isolated groups of mammals: the native rodents of Madagascar, the endemic rodents of the Philippines, and South American didelphid marsupials. Each of these groups contains species that have evolved to take advantage of a wide range of ecological conditions and exhibit a broad array of morphological adaptations. Reconstructing the evolutionary history of these groups is the first step towards understanding which forces -- biological and geological -- have prompted their diversification. She employs DNA sequence data to infer phylogenetic history, and works with traditional systematists to combine morphological and molecular data to provide a better understanding of mammalian evolutionary history. |
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Janine Ochoa, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines – Diliman Google Scholar / ResearchGate Janine is an archaeologist interested in past human ecology and human landscapes, specializing in zooarchaeology, with a focus on terrestrial mammals and reptiles. She is interested in investigating traditional systems of ecological knowledge, palaeoenvironments, biogeographic patterns and island evolution in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. She is currently studying fossil vertebrate assemblages from archaeological sites in Luzon and Palawan, including her role as senior author of a recent publication that named three previously unknown, extinct species of cloud rats from the Callao Cave complex in NE Luzon. |
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Perry Ong, Ph.D.
Former Professor and Director of the Institute of Biology and Dean of UP Diliman College of Science Google Scholar / ResearchGate Philippine biological research and conservation suffered a great setback when Perry passed away on 2 March 2019 from a heart attack at the age of 58. His research interests and expertise included urban biodiversity, tarsier biology, ecology, systematics, forest restoration, DNA barcoding, biology of Philippine wildlife, biodiversity conservation and monitoring of geothermal production fields. He contributed significantly to the conservation of the critically endangered Philippine Eagle Phithecophaga jefferyi and the near threatened Philippine tarsier. Perry earned his PhD in Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the Monash University, Australia in 1995. In addition to four years as Director of Conservation International - Philippines, Perry served as Professor in the Institute of Biology, and as Director of the Institute from June 2006 to June 2012 before being named as Dean of the College of Science in 2013. |
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Aris A. Reginaldo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biology, University of the Philippines — Baguio Google Scholar / ResearchGate Aris is an Assistant Professor on the faculty of the Department of Biology, University of the Philippines Baguio. Aris does research in Zoology and Ecology; his current project is “Ecology of Endemic and Introduced Small Mammals in Montane Forest Fragments in the Central Cordillera, northern Luzon, Philippines. He recently received his PhD in Ecology and Systematics from the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines, Diliman. |
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Trina Roberts, Ph.D.
Associate VP for Collections, Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County ORCHID Trina Roberts is Associate VP for Collections at the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, where she works with collections staff from natural sciences to history to minerals to wrangle, improve, and constantly advocate for one of the largest natural history museum collections in the U.S. She studied the phylogeography and evolution of Philippine fruit bats as a graduate student at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago’s Committee on Evolutionary Biology, advised by Larry Heaney and John Bates. She has also studied the evolution of treeshrews in Southeast Asia, working with Link Olson, Eric Sargis, and other collaborators. Recently, her fundamental interest in natural history has led her to be an active participant in the iNaturalist community science platform, although (mostly) focusing on taxa other than mammals. |
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Jodi Sedlock, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology, Lawrence University ResearchGate Jodi has been exploring the secret lives of bats for many years, mostly across the diverse archipelago of the Philippines. In collaboration with Filipino scientists and conservation professionals, colleagues at the Field Museum, Lawrence University undergraduates, and many others, she has documented bat diversity within forests along elevational gradients, in limestone caves, and in agricultural areas to better understand how bats respond to human-caused landscape changes. After years of eavesdropping on the echolocation calls of bats, her research has shifted to the realm of sensory ecology—specifically, how the acoustic environment serves as a niche axis structuring animal communities, in the Philippines and United States. |
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Scott Steppan, Ph.D.
Professor, Biological Science, Florida State University Google Scholar / ResearchGate / The Steppan Lab Scott's research is focused on understanding the origin of biological diversity. To address this long-term goal, he studies highly diversified groups of animals (especially rodents but other groups as well such as bivalves) ranging from population to ordinal levels. His research reconstructs the phylogenetic relationships to use as the framework for other analyses of diversification, from biogeography to the influence of quantitative genetics on macroevolution. Muroid rodents are by far the most diverse group of mammals with 1,600 species, and his work focuses on them as well as various sub-groups, especially the South American sigmodontine mice (>360 species), the Andean leaf-eared mice, Phyllotis, and the Philippine forest mice Apomys. |
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Myrissa Lepiten Tabao, MSc
Head, Corporate Relations Dept., Mt. Apo Geothermal Project, Energy Development Corporation Myrissa was a junior faculty member and researcher with the Center for Tropical Conservation Studies at Silliman University in Dumaguete City when she first joined the field expeditions under the Philippine Mammal Project in 1987, and continued as a member of the team until the mid-1990s. She was a pioneer member of the Biodiversity Conservation Society of the Philippines (then known as Wildlife Conservation Society of the Philippines) when it was formed in 1991. In 1998, she joined the Haribon Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources and continued to conduct fieldwork in the islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. She contributed to the writing of the "The Key Conservation Sites in the Philippines", a book which identified Philippine hotspots where endemic, unique and threatened animals need protection. Her current post with a renewable energy company involves working with indigenous communities and supporting forest protection and biodiversity conservation in Mt. Apo, the Philippines' highest mountain, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and biodiversity conservation hotspot. |
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Blas R. Tabaranza Jr.
Retired Professor of Zoology, Mindanao State University (MSU) Chief Operating Officer, HARIBON Foundation Blas is a retired Professor of Zoology of Mindanao State University (MSU) and Chief Operating Officer of HARIBON Foundation. He began his wildlife studies as a field biologist with Dr. Dioscoro S. Rabor at MSU in 1974. While with MSU-IIT he became involved with the Philippine Mammal Project 1992. This collaboration resulted in the discovery of 5 new species of small mammals from Mt. Kitanglad, Dinagat Island and Camiguin Island. He joined BirdLife International (BLI) as the Philippines Programme Officer in 1994 and later joined the staff of the Haribon Foundation, and was elected as a member of the BLI Global Council and served for 8 years until 2011. After serving the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Philippines (now Biodiversity Conservation Society of the Philippines) as President for nearly 10 years, he is now President /Board Member Emeritus of the Society. |
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Ruth Utzurrum, Ph.D.
Ruth's early interest in fruit bats as a Master’s student at Silliman University led her to document both short- and long-term seed dispersal services in a diverse community of fruit bats. Her dissertation study on spatio-temporal patterns in population and community structure of Philippine bats explored the association between bat abundance and food resource availability at multiple scales. Ruth simultaneously collaborated with Philippine Mammal Project expeditions to Negros Island, Leyte, Catanduanes, Luzon, and Mindanao, and established the first in-situ captive breeding program for Philippine fruit bats and proposed the development of the Center for Tropical Conservation Studies (CENTROP), at Silliman U. All of this has led her to conduct research on biodiversity patterns, conservation priorities, reproductive and population ecology, foraging and seed dispersal ecology, patterns in wildlife disease prevalence and diversity, genetic structuring in bats and birds, in the Philippines and south-central Pacific. |
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Maria Josefa Veluz
Mammal Collection Manager, Philippine National Museum Google Scholar / ResearchGate Sweepea Veluz was the person in charge of the Mammal Section in the National Museum of Natural History, a part of the National Museum of the Philippines, until her untimely death on 16 June 2022. In addition to caring for the largest research collection of mammals in the Philippines, Sweepea had broad interests in mammal taxonomy, evolution, and ecology, and in techniques for the care of research collections, publishing over 20 papers on these topics. She often joined the Philippine Mammal Project team in the field (first in 2005), and traveled to The Field Museum for advanced training and collaboration on research in 2006 and 2010. |
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Joseph S. Walsh, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Instruction, Program in Biological Sciences, Northwestern University Joe Walsh is an evolutionary biologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. His research interests in the biodiversity sciences are broad, dealing mostly with the processes that influence speciation and diversification, and ecological patterns of species richness. He began working with the Philippine Mammal Project as a graduate student in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, where Larry Heaney served as his primary advisor. He conducted field work on Siquijor Island in the Philippines in 1993 with a focus on bats, adding many first records of species on the island. His dissertation, successfully defended in 1998, focused on the roles of geological history and colonization abilities in genetic differentiation between mammalian populations in the Philippine archipelago, with a focus on fruit bats (family Pteropodidae). Since then, he has taught many hundreds of undergraduate students, exposing them to the complexities and delights of evolution, ecology, and conservation. |
FIELD TEAM MEMBERS
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Nonito Antoque
Field Technician Nonito began working with the Philippine Mammal project in 1992, when he was a young man living on the lower slope of Mt. Kitanglad, Mindanao. He quickly developed skills involving trapping small mammals, netting bats and birds, catching reptiles and amphibians, and in preparing specimens for study. He again joined the team on Mt Kitanglad in 1993, on Camiguin Island in 1995, and in northern Luzon in most years from 2000 to 2008. He continues to work with researchers studying Philippine biodiversity in virtually all parts of the country. |
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Ricardo Buenviaje
Field Technician Cardo grew up near the base of Mt. Isarog, in Camarines Sur Province. He began working with the Philippine Mammal Project in 1988. He quickly became a highly skilled field technician with specialties in working with bats and rodents, as well as in the construction of field camps and supervision of local camp helpers. He has joined the team for surveys in all parts of the Philippines, in addition to working with other research teams from the Philippines and foreign countries. |
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Joel Sarmiento
Field Technician Joel grew up in a small town on the Bataan Peninsula, west of Manila Bay. After graduating from high school, he took a variety of jobs before settling into a position with the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources, working as a park guard, community conservation organizer, and wildlife specialist. Joel began working with the Philippine Mammal Project in 2004 and quickly became a highly skilled field biology technician, subsequently joining the team every year on nearly every survey in all parts of the Philippines. He often serves as the team interface with the DENR, as well as the primary camp organizer, supervising porters and camp helpers. |
ILLUSTRATORS AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
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Velizar Simeonovski
Lead Scientific Illustrator and Paleoartist By education and training, Velizar is a zoologist with interests in the evolution of mammalian external traits – coloration, manes, dewlaps, horns and so forth, their variation, development, inheritance and relations with the environment. His research questions include such things as why the lion has a mane, the tiger has stripes, and the uintathere has 3 pairs of horns. Answers to those questions have turned out to be extremely complex, often producing quite unexpected results. Velizar is also a skilled wildlife artist, providing the bulk of the illustrations of Philippine mammals used throughout this project, as well as many of mammals from other countries. Velizar's illustrations can be seen at the top of each page of this site, as well as on the many posters. |
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Trish DeCoster
Trish’s first job out of college, where she majored in Environmental Studies, was her Research Assistant position with the Philippine Mammal Project at the Field Museum. Since then, life has taken her down many paths but her driving passion has always been science education, particularly on environmental issues. Most recently, she taught middle school science in the Denver area. After six years of public school teaching, she took time off to be with her newborn daughter. Currently, she is working at a company that resells baby gear and has been figuring out how to get back into the environmental education sphere. |
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Kayleigh Kueffner
Former Research Assistant and Illustrator Kayleigh is currently a graduate student at Evergreen State College, in the Master of Environmental Science program. Her research interests are heavily focused in ecology, biodiversity, and speciation of birds. She was introduced to the study of birds through an ornithology course during her last semester as an undergraduate at the Art Institute of Chicago and shortly after started working in the bird division at the Field Museum of Natural History. She worked at the museum for a little over 8 years on several projects, including as a Research Assistant for the Philippine Mammal Project, and she led a digitization project that documented the phenotype of salvaged migratory birds, trained volunteers on specimen preparation, and assisted the Chicago Peregrine Program. |
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Lauren Nassef
Research Assistant and Illustrator Lauren is an illustrator who joined the Field Museum in 2018 as a volunteer in the Bird Division where she learned to prepare specimens for the permanent collection. Since 2019, she has been the Research Assistant for the Philippine Mammal Project in the Negaunee Integrative Research Center. Her day-to-day work involves a wide range of tasks from cleaning, cataloging and imaging newly acquired specimens to preparing figures and materials for scientific publications and outreach efforts. She served as the primary developer of this website. |
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Andria Seward
Former Research Assistant and Illustrator Andria's deepest interests lie in the relationship between the artist & scientist; she strongly believes that each field makes the other stronger and helps reach a wider audience. Her technical skills have allowed her to practice taxidermy, fossil preparation, numbering tiny skeletons, and scanning electron microscopy. Her artistic skills have aided the publication and descriptions of many new mammal species. She is continuing to work in the natural sciences while offering her artistic background and attention to minute detail as a means to further scientific projects. |
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Leia Uí Dhalaígh
Former Research Assistant and Illustrator Leia is currently based in Washington state. Her detail-oriented nature and boundless curiosity lead to many fields, from her Anthropology background to data curation and management. She is currently working in corporate communications and compliance. When she is not working she is adventuring with her husband and three children and painting the natural world. Working on the Philippine Mammal Project has been a major highlight in her life. |
RECENT POSTDOCS AND STUDENTS
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Christopher C. Kyriazis
PhD student at UCLA in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Google Scholar / ResearchGate Currently working with Kirk Lohmueller and Robert Wayne, Chris' dissertation research aims to explore applications of genomics in conservation biology, with the specific goal of understanding the genetic factors that can drive extinction in small and isolated wildlife populations. Prior to his PhD studies, he obtained a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2015. As an undergraduate and full-time research assistant at both the Field Museum of Natural History and Loyola University, he investigated patterns of evolutionary diversification in mammals and birds from the Philippines and Madagascar. |
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Jonathan A. Nations, Ph.D.
NSF Postdoctoral Researcher, Slater Lab at the University of Chicago and Field Museum Google Scholar / GitHub Jon is an evolutionary mammalogist interested in fundamental questions in ecology an evolution, such as how the size, shape, and behavior of an organism reflects both its evolutionary history and its role in the ecosystem it inhabits. Jon uses the taxonomically diverse small mammals of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, as a focal system to understand how selective pressures such as foraging mode, competition, and habitat affect body form and community structure. He is especially interested in developing underutilized methodologies, such as Bayesian multilevel modeling, for the evolutionary biologists' toolkit, as well as the continued growth and maintenance of museum collections. He recently completed his PhD at Louisiana State University with Jake Esselstyn and is currently a National Science Foundation postdoctoral scholar at the Field Museum and University of Chicago researching the evolution of morphological diversity in the shrews (Soricidae) of Southeast Asia. |
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Anna Petrosky, MSc
ResearchGate As a graduate student in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago and Field Museum of Natural History, Anna conducted research on biogeography and ecological diversification. Her research focused on dietary niche partitioning in "earthworm mice", a radiation of murine rodents endemic to the Philippines, including field work in Apayao Pronvince in northern Luzon in 2019. |
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Dakota Rowsey, Ph.D.
Vertebrate Collections Manager, ASU Biocollections Google Scholar / ResearchGate Dakota is an evolutionary biologist interested in integrating molecular phylogenetic, morphological, and spatial data to answer questions about how organisms change and interact with each other over macroevolutionary timescale, with a focus on island mammals. He conducted his PhD studies at the University of Minnesota with Sharon Jansa, focusing on two of the radiations of Philippine endemic small mammals. He then joined the Philippine Mammal Project as a post-doc, investigating the temporal dynamics of mammalian colonization and diversification on islands in the northern Philippines, before moving on to his current position at Arizona State University, where he continues his research on Philippine mammals. |
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Stephanie M. Smith, Ph.D.
Women in Science Postdoctoral Fellow, Field Museum of Natural History Google Scholar Stephanie is a mammal functional morphologist investigating how functional demands, selective pressure, phylogenetic history, and development interact to produce diverse mammalian morphologies. She is particularly interested in the form, function, and evolution of the skeleton in small mammals. Her current research as the Field Museum Women in Science Postdoctoral Fellow is focused on how body size, habitat, and ecology affect internal (spongy) bone structure in two highly diverse endemic radiations of Philippine small mammals. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2017, and was previously awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Using Biological Collections to investigate the unusual spinal column of the African "hero shrew" Scutisorex. |
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