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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: [email protected] |
Graduate Students
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Hope George |
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Sam Hinkley |
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Hope graduated with a B.S. in Environmental Biology from William Carey University in 2025. She will begin the M.S. program at John Carroll in Fall 2025, and is interested in studying defensive behaviors in dendrobatid poison frogs.
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Sam graduated with a B.S. in Zoology from Michigan State University in 2020. He began the M.S. program at John Carroll in Fall 2024 and has broad interests surrounding the function and physiology of chemical defenses in dendrobatid poison frogs. His thesis research aims to understand the physiological effects of alkaloid sequestration in the green and black poison frog, Dendrobates auratus, in Costa Rica.
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Undergraduate Students
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Kevin Kotyk |
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Isabella Schuster |
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Kevin is a sophomore biology major and joined the lab in Fall 2024. He has recently begun a project to study microbial inhibition of tricyclic alkaloids. He is also in charge of caring for the live poison frog colony in the Saporito Lab.
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Isabella is a junior biology major and joined the lab in Fall 2024. She is currently assisting with care for the live poison frog colony in the Saporito Lab.
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Mara SidloskiMara is a junior biology major and joined the lab in Spring 2025. She received a Debra Pawl Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) and travelled to Costa Rica in Summer 2025 to study antipredator behavior and the physiological costs of alkaloid sequestration in the strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio. She is also developing a non-destructive method to collect alkaloid defenses from the green and black poison frog, Dendrobates auratus.
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Hailey WhittenHailey is a junior Cellular & Molecular Biology major with a Biochemistry concentration and joined the lab in Spring 2025. She is studying alkaloid modification in dendrobatid poison frogs - in particular, N-methylation of piperidine alkaloids.
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Ashley BurrisAshley is a junior chemistry major at JCU and joined the lab in Fall 2024. She has been working with graduate student Erica Berent to study maternal alkaloid provisioning in the poison frog Oophaga pumilio from Panama.
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Max SferraMax is a junior biology major at JCU and joined the lab in Spring 2025. He received a Debra Pawl Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) and travelled to Costa Rica in Summer 2025 to study alkaloid defenses and color in the green and black poison frog, Dendrobates auratus.
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Visiting Researchers
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Arianna Tartara |
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Arianna is a visiting Ph.D. student from the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Arianna is studying alkaloid defenses in several species of Ecuadorian poison frogs as part of a large DFG-supported Reassembly project.
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