Team

Principal Investigator

Owen McMillan

Staff scientist interested in the genetic basis of adaptive variation, with an emphasis on the convergent evolution of Heliconius wing pattern development throughout the New World tropics.

Staff members

Carlos Arias

Data Scientist, Lab and Research Manager studying the evolutionary processes and mechanisms driving and constraining the origin of new species in nature.

Rémi Mauxion

Passionate about tropical butterflies and plants, Rémi is the Research Manager in charge of overseeing the research projects happening in the insectaries and the field.

Daniel Romero

Research assistant rearing butterflies, collecting digital data and helping with genetic experiments.

Oscar Paneso

Insectaries manager overseeing all aspects of the butterfly facilities, host plant greenhouses, and field collection trips.

Postdocs

Denise Dell’Aglio

Post Doc interested in studying different aspects of the ecology of Heliconius. Currently, she is focusing on the role of mushroom bodies in their spatial and visual memory through behavioral experiments.

Juliette Rubin

Tony Coates Postdoctoral Fellow studying the evolution of iridescence in butterflies using phylogenomic, developmental, and behavioral approaches.

Joe Hanly

Post Doc and Smithsonian Biodiversity Genomics Fellow studying the evolutionary developmental genetics of Heliconius wing patterns using single cell-omics methods.

Melanie Heckwolf

Post Doc Fellow specialized in speciation in sympatric coral reef fishes with a focus on functional divergence and post-zygotic barriers. Melanie is currently working on a large whole genome resequencing dataset in order to understand the evolution of the different wing patterns of the different races of Heliconius melpomene and erato.

PhD Students

Sol Parra

Sol is a PhD student working in our lab, originally from Colombia, with a passion for moths. She was previously an intern in our lab, where she worked on a CRISPR project during a year. Now pursuing her passion, Sol is focused on understanding the coevolutionary forces between ecology and mimicry in moths that mimic wasps and related species.

Christopher Lawrence

My name is Christopher Lawrence. I am a queer Afrikan/Black evolutionary biologist with roots in Appalachia and Panama. I am passionate about Black Ecologies and the intersection between non western epistemologies and ecological and evolutionary research. I am interested in epigenetic inheritance and it’s genetic and non genetic underpinnings. I am currently finishing my PhD at Princeton University and plan to continue my scientific pursuits after defending and want to continue working at STRI and Gamboa with the friends and collaborators I have found there.

Dheeraj Halali

Dheeraj is a PhD student with Chris Jiggins in the Insect Evolution and Genomics group at the University of Cambridge. Originally from Goa in India, Dheeraj focuses his research on plant-animal interactions, specifically exploring the evolution of plasticity in acquiring chemical defences in Passiflora feeding Heliconinii butterflies. He primarily conducts fieldwork in Panama and Brazil.

Interns & Fellows

Leo Camino

Research Fellow using genomic editing tools to understand how shapes and colors are created in nature, and exploring how these traits diversify across various lineages in the face of thermal stressors in a rapidly changing climate. Leo spearheads our CrisprCas9 project and is also interested in unreavealing the secrets of the gyroid structures on Parides sesostris.

Yanileth Lopez-Tacoaman

Research Fellow from the Amazon with a keen interest in evolution, the discovery of new metabolite-based therapies, and proteins that show bioactivity against diseases, with potential applications for species conservation. Currently studying the evolution of structural coloration in Morpho butterflies and the evolution of proteins related to the immune system in anole lizards.

Paola Calderon

Research Intern working on different behavioral and genomic projects in Heliconius butterflies. Also, Paola won a short term fellowship grant to study the remating in Heliconius numata.

Greta Hernández

Research intern that assisted in the maintenance of butterfly stocks, as well as behavioral and genetic experiments. Greta is currently supporting the project of our talented postdoc Juliette Rubin and is working on the evolution of iridescence  in Morpho butterflies. 

Pushkar Wagh

Research intern from Nashik, India with a keen interest in studying adaptation and plasticity in animals, as a response to anthropogenic stressors. Having previously worked on frogs back home during his Masters, he has now hopped on to butterflies and is currently studying the effects of early life heat and cold stress on the thermal ecology and coloration of the magnificent Morpho butterflies, under the guidance of Dr. Juliette Rubin.

Former members

Abbie Rehbein

Research intern studying RNAi knockdowns in genes associated with wing coloration in Heloconius butterflies.

Daniela Hernández Cuadra

Research intern working on the evolution of iridescence  in Morpho butterflies. 

Paola Soto

Fellow through the NSF RaMP-UP program, helping to characterize the roles of different genes involved in butterfly wing color patterns and interested in interdisciplinary research.

John Nguyen

NSF RaMP Fellow studying the ecological correlates, genomics, and maintenance of a female-limited polymorphism in slender anoles (Anolis apletophallus).

Sylvia Garza

Intern working on developing and coordinating outreach projects, running the lab’s social media presence, and helping create educational content.

Guillaume Ghisbain

Post Doc interested in understanding the genomic mechanisms involved in generating the outstanding phenotypic convergence between Heliconius co-mimics.

Benita Laird-Hopkins

PhD student studying the thermoregulatory abilities of Heliconius with the aim to understand which species will be most vulnerable as temperatures increase with climate change.

Laura Hebberecht

PhD student interested in the developmental and genomic mechanisms that facilitate adaptive innovation and aim to describe the developmental peculiarities of Heliconius expanded mushroom bodies.

Carolina Concha

Post Doc studying the genetic control and regulation of Heliconius wing color patterns to understand the genomic basis of evolutionary change.

Jessie Foley

PhD student investigating Heliconius‘ extended lifespans with the aim of establishing this group as a new insect model for longevity and aging studies.

Hubert Szczygiel

Research intern that studied patterns in the evolutionary response of reef fishes to climate change by looking at genetic differences between species across the Isthmus and the Pacific upwelling gradient.

Josie McPherson

Research intern that assisted with the ongoing project of Heliconius butterflies unique pollen diet and the possible relationship with their long lifespans.

Luca Livraghi

Post Doc studying the evolution of gene networks and how they control a Heliconius‘ diverse wing patterns by characterizing the alleles driving morphological evolution across species.

Cruz Batista

Research aid in charge of facilitating the field studies of incoming students and Post Docs.

James Ogilvie

PhD student interested in the evolution of Heliconius color patterns and the ecological pressures that underlie local adaptation and polymorphic mimicry.

Made Roger

Research intern studying Heliconius lifespan, cognition, and wing-patterning genes.