Erika Garcia (PhD student in Dr. Paula Cushing's lab) was awarded a 20-month Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue her project titled “An integrative approach to evaluating the diversity of the elusive camel spider in Israel” at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this project, Erika will be using conducting research on the solifuge diversity of the region, much of which has not been rigorously studied for several decades. Her project will be collections-based research out of the National Natural History Collections, and she will be utilizing next-generation sequencing, microscopy, and modeling techniques to understand the solifuge biodiversity and species assemblages of the region. The goal of this research will be to provide an updated taxonomic key of the Israelian solifuge diversity for future biological studies of the group and to help train the next generation of local solifuge biologists.

Congratulations Erika!