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Ralph A. Saporito, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Graduate Program Director Department of Biology John Carroll University Office: Dolan W211 Lab: Dolan W108 & W110 Ph: 216.397.4492 E-mail: rsaporito@jcu.edu |
Graduate Students
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Olivia Brooks |
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Katie Waters |
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Olivia graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Ohio University in 2018. She began the M.S. program at John Carroll University in Fall 2018, and has been working on a project to describe maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in the granulated poison frog Oophaga granulifera from Costa Rica. For her thesis research, she is studying the effects of natural alkaloid variation on maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in mothers and tadpoles of the strawberry poison frog Oophaga pumilio in Costa Rica.
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Katie graduated with a B.S. in Biology from John Carroll University in 2019. She will begin the M.S. program at John Carroll University in Fall 2019. Katie is interested in studying differences in alkaloid sequestration - uptake efficiency and chemical modification of alkaloids - within and among species of poison frogs. In particular, she plans to compare alkaloid sequestration among different lineages of poison frogs, as well as examine differences in sequestration among populations of dendrobatid poison frogs in Costa Rica.
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Undergraduate Students
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Ashley Brooks |
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Nina Savastano |
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Ashley is a senior Biology major at JCU. She joined the lab in Fall 2017 and is currently in charge of our tropical frog collection - in particular, she is working to catalogue new specimens and maintain old specimens, and she is responsible for all live frog care. She was awarded a 2018 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from JCU, and is studying variation in alkaloid defenses among populations of Oophaga granulifera and Oophaga pumilio from Costa Rica.
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Nina is a sophomore Environmental Science major at JCU. She joined the lab in Fall 2019 and is working on multiple projects. She is researching anti predator behavior in the yellow-striped poison frog, Dendrobates truncatus, and maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in the granulated poison frog Oophaga granulifera. She was also awarded a 2019 Summer Undergraduate Fellowship (SURF) from JCU and is studying the distribution of alkaloid defenses in the skin of the green and black poison frog Dendrobates auratus from Costa Rica.
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Kathryn BacikKathryn is a sophomore Biology major at JCU. She joined the lab in Fall 2019 and is conducting research on maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in the strawberry poison frog Oophaga pumilio from Costa Rica.
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Visiting Students
Adriana Jeckel |
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Adriana is a PhD candidate from the Graduate Program in Zoology of University of São Paulo, Brazil and her research focuses mainly on chemical defense of poison frogs and its ecological and evolutionary implications. Currently, her PhD research aims to understand some of the mechanisms that allow poison frogs to sequester alkaloids.
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