1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?
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 I study genetic diversity and its relation to geography in populations of fruit bats in the Philippines. The Philippines have amazing biodiversity and a remarkable number of endemic species, partly because of their geology and their geographic history. I am interested in how the geographic and historical relationships among islands have affected the evolution of the bat populations living on them, and in how other evolutionary processes interact with geography.
My current project focuses on six fruit bat species (all from the family Pteropodidae) which have different distributions and ecological characteristics. I am combining evolution and biogeography to determine how populations are related to each other, how much gene flow there is among them, and what factors have been most important in their evolutionary history.
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2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?
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My research depends on tissue samples from the collections of the Field Museum and other institutions—I extract and sequence DNA from tissues that were collected in the field by other researchers. Most of these samples are stored in liquid nitrogen or in “ultracold” (-80C) freezers, which keeps DNA in excellent condition for many years. I am currently sequencing parts of two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2) using methods and techniques that are standard in molecular evolutionary biology. I also use a variety of computer software packages to assist in editing, compiling, and analyzing my data.
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3. Where do you study biodiversity?
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I do my research at the Field Museum, both in the Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution and in the Division of Mammals. The bats themselves come from locations throughout the Philippines, and the tissues have been collected by many people on multiple field expeditions.
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4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?
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The bat species I study all depend to some extent on native tropical rain forest. Learning how dependant each is on the high-quality primary forest that is often lost to deforestation is crucial to understanding how it will be affected by continued changes in forest cover and agriculture. Understanding the relationships among populations and species is also critical for determining and describing what there is to conserve.
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5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?
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 I have always been interested in animals and natural history, and a growing fascination with evolution and genetics caused me to concentrate in biology in college. I am now a Ph.D. student in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. My research interests have led me to spend most of my time at the Field Museum, and my two research advisors, Dr. Lawrence R. Heaney and Dr. John Bates, are curators in the museum’s Department of Zoology. I enjoy the combination of imagination, academic rigor, analytical thinking, and independence that makes up scientific research.
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