Ralph A. Saporito, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology Graduate Program Director Department of Biology John Carroll University Office: Dolan W211 Labs: Dolan W108 & W110 Frog Room: W219-B Ph: 216.397.4492 E-mail: rsaporito@jcu.edu |
Graduate Students
Katherine Porras-Brenes |
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Erica Berent |
Katherine graduated with a B.S. in Tropical Biology and Natural Resources Management from the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica in 2021. She began the M.S. program at John Carroll in Fall 2022, and will study chemical defenses, color, and behavior in the green and black dendrobatid poison frog, Dendrobates auratus, in Costa Rica.
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Erica graduated with a B.A. in Biology from the College of Wooster in 2021. She will begin the M.S. program at John Carroll in Fall 2023, and is interested in studying maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in the strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio, from Bocas del Toro, Panama.
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Undergraduate Students
Grace Burkin |
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Vilma Dudaitis |
Grace is a junior Biology major at JCU, and she joined the lab in Fall 2023. She is currently in charge of caring for the live poison frog colony in the Saporito Lab.
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Vilma is a senior Biology major at JCU, and she joined the lab in Spring 2022. She was awarded a 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from JCU, and is currently describing alkaloid variation in 6 different species of myobatrachid poison frogs (Pseudophryne) from Australia.
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Aaron FernandoAaron is a junior Biology major at JCU and joined the lab in Spring 2023. He was awarded a 2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from JCU, and will be studying alkaloid palatability in the green and black poison frog, Dendrobates auratus, from Costa Rica.
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Jason FreisenJason is a junior Biology major at JCU and joined the lab in Fall 2023. He will be working on a collaborative project recently funded by an NSF grant awarded to the Saporito Lab and Farallo Lab to study the physiological effects of alkaloid sequestration in dendrobatid poison frogs.
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Emily SlusarzEmily is a senior Biology major at JCU and joined the lab in Fall 2021. She has worked on an experiment aimed at better understanding sequestration of tricyclic alkaloids in poison frogs of the genus Ranitomeya.
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Visiting Researchers