Ralph A. Saporito, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor
​Graduate Program Director
Department of Biology
John Carroll University

Office: Dolan W211
Lab: Dolan W108 & W110
Frog Room: W219-B

Ph: 216.397.4492
E-mail: rsaporito@jcu.edu
Graduate Students

Katherine Porras-Brenes
Katherine graduated with a B.S. in Tropical Biology and Natural Resources Management from the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica in 2021. She will begin the M.S. program at John Carroll University in Fall 2022, and is interested in studying chemical defenses, color, and behavior in dendrobatid poison frogs in Costa Rica.
Undergraduate Students

Ella Church

Vilma Dudaitis
Ella is a senior Environmental Science major at JCU, and she joined the lab in Fall 2021. She is currently working on an experiment to test for N-methylation of piperidine alkaloids in poison frogs of the genus Ranitomeya.
Vilma is a junior 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.

Emily Slusarz

Emily is a junior Biology major at JCU and joined the lab in Fall 2021. She is currently working with her lab-mate Mia Zivkovic on an experiment aimed at better understanding sequestration of tricyclic alkaloids in poison frogs of the genus Ranitomeya. Emily is also in charge of caring for the live poison frog colony in the Saporito Lab.

Mia Zivkovic

Mia is a junior Biology major at JCU and joined the lab in Fall 2021. She is currently working with her lab-mate Emily Slusarz on an experiment aimed at better understanding sequestration of tricyclic alkaloids in poison frogs of the genus Ranitomeya.
Visiting Researchers

Dr. Adriana Jeckel
​Dr. Adriana Jeckel recently graduated from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where her research focused mainly on chemical defenses in poison frogs and their ecological and evolutionary implications. More specifically, much of her research aims to understand some of the mechanisms that allow poison frogs to sequester alkaloids. She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland.