About Me
As cliché as it sounds, nature has always been a big part of my life living in a semi-rural area of Puerto Rico. Since my early days I was curious about what surrounded me and wanted to know as much as possible about my surroundings, always asking as many questions as possible. This led me to pursue a Bachelor's in Wildlife Management at the University of Puerto Rico Humacao Campus (UPR-H) from which I graduated in May 2022. During my Bachelor's I was able to conduct research on niche partitioning between two snail species, Caracolus caracolla and C. marginella, in Humacao under the guidance of Dr. Denny Fernández del Viso.
Shortly after, in August 2022, I began a Master's in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus (UPR-RP) which I completed in May 2025 thanks to the co-mentorship of Dr. Julissa Rojas-Sandoval (U-Conn) and Dr. James D. Ackerman (UPR-RP). During this time my thesis research focused on utilizing plant-pollinator interaction data, floral traits, and machine learning algorithms to predict floral visitors for plant species in the Guánica Dry Forest. One of the challenges that I faced during my post-graduate studies was the lack of information, including identification guides and keys, for most, if not all, of the insect groups found within Puerto Rico. This has motivated me to work with museum collections and utilize DNA Barcode to quantify species already collected for Puerto Rico and elucidate the identity of unidentified specimens.
I plan to pursue a Ph.D. in ecology and focus my academic carrer in conducting research on insect diversity to help bridge the gap in insect ecology and taxonomy that currently exists not only within Puerto Rico, but throughout the world especially outside of agricultural aspects.
During my time in Graduate School I've assisted in research projects concerning themes of pollination networks, invasive species, and Hymenoptera taxonomy. Additionally, I have developed my teaching skills working as a Teaching Assistant to undergraduate students including General Biology Laboratory I and II at the Biology Department and Introduction to Research at the UPRRP's Zoology Museum. Within the museum I have developed skills of collection curation and management, community and educational outreach, and have assisted laboratory technicians and museum collection managers in their tasks. ​
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From all these experiences I have developed and refined my interests to include entomology, insect taxonomy and phylogeny, plant phenology, invasive species, polliantion biology, plant-pollination interactions, tropical ecology, population and community ecology.
