a bat

Going batty

Costa Rican biologist Jorge D. Carballo Morales 鈥�25, who began his research at 撸先生 in 2023 in the master鈥檚 biology program, is a student in the lab of assistant professor Daniel Caetano, Ph.D. Carballo Morales is studying the macroevolution of bat families and how their diets play a role in their evolution and contribute to various ecosystems. 

Bats are so important, and we take them for granted. They are essential seed dispersers in the tropics and ensure the continuity of forests.

Jorge D. Carballo Morales 鈥�25

Under Caetano鈥檚 wing, Carballo Morales is learning how to apply statistical methods to his data collection on bat diets. To better understand bat diversification, Carballo Morales is working through 3,000 rows of existing data to make reconstructions of bat diets from when bats first appeared more than 50 million years ago to the present day. Studying the evolution of bat diets is key to understanding how these essential seed dispersers support forest ecosystems.

Searching cells for solutions

Biology professor Elana Ehrlich, Ph.D., is using her third grant from the National Institutes of Health to study Kaposi鈥檚 sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV), an infection associated with HIV/AIDS.  

Her research seeks to determine how and why KSHV hijacks the cellular protein degradation system to evade the immune system and promote viral replication. By identifying proteins targeted for degradation by the virus, Ehrlich hopes to identify new drug targets.

From an undergraduate training perspective, for students to have real-world research experience can be life changing.

Elana Ehrlich, Ph.D., biology professor

Ehrlich is working with nine undergraduate students to test how drugs target the 鈥渢agged for trash鈥� proteins, impact the replication of the virus and play a role in whether the virus remains latent or could infect other cells.

city skyscrapers

Mobility and migration

Associate professor Maria Jo茫o Lobo Antunes, Ph.D., is exploring the impacts of intracity residential mobility on deviant behaviors and victimization among minority and immigrant youth. 

With her background as a quantitative criminologist, Antunes has identified the need to examine how inner-city and intracity moving influences minority and immigrant youths鈥� experiences with perpetrated or experienced violence. 

I like to inform my teaching with my research, and I like my research to be informed by my teaching.

Maria Jo茫o Lobo Antunes, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Antunes is expanding her research on 鈥渃rimmigration鈥濃�攖he merging of immigration and the legal system鈥攚ith the support of the W.E.B. Du Bois grant from the National Institute of Justice and connecting it to the classroom through a special topics course, Immigrants, Crime and Justice.