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Ralph A. Saporito, Ph.D.
Chair & Professor of Biology Department of Biology John Carroll University Office: Dolan W202 Labs: Dolan W108 & W110 Frog Room: W219-B Ph: 216.397.4492 E-mail: [email protected] |
Graduate Students
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Ella Boback |
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Hope George |
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Ella graduated with a B.A. in Biology from Bucknell University in 2026. She will begin the M.S. program at John Carroll in Fall 2026, and is currently exploring potential research questions for her thesis.
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Hope graduated with a B.S. in Environmental Biology from William Carey University in 2025. She began the M.S. program at John Carroll in Fall 2025, and is interested in defensive behaviors in poison frogs. Her thesis research aims to further study color and pattern in Costa Rican populations of Dendrobates auratus as it relates to defensive behaviors, exploration, and boldness.
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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 junior Biology major and joined the lab in Fall 2024. He is working on a project to study microbial inhibition of tricyclic alkaloids. In Summer 2026, he was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), and is also studying alkaloid variation in a polymorphic population of Oophaga pumilio from Bocas del Toro, Panama. 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 senior 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 and 2026 to study antipredator behavior and the physiological costs of alkaloid sequestration in dendrobatid poison frogs. She is also identifying and characterizing newly discovered examples of alkaloid modification - in particular, N-methylation and hydroxylation. Finally, she is 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 senior Cellular & Molecular Biology major with a Biochemistry concentration and joined the lab in Spring 2025. She received a Debra Pawl Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) and travelled to Costa Rica in Summer 2026 to study antipredator behavior in and the physiological costs of alkaloid sequestration in dendrobatid poison frogs. She is also identifying and characterizing newly discovered examples of alkaloid modification - in particular, N-methylation and hydroxylation.
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Ashley BurrisAshley is a senior Chemistry major at JCU and joined the lab in Fall 2024. She has been involved in a study of maternal alkaloid provisioning in the poison frog Oophaga pumilio from Panama.
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Max SferraMax is a senior 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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