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Hafa Adai/Mabuhay/Hello!
Hafa Adai/Mabuhay/Hello!
Welcome to my page! I am a Guam raised Pinay scientist in training!
Welcome to my page! I am a Guam raised Pinay scientist in training!
Current Position: Post Doctoral Research Analyst at the Hawaii Cooperative Studies Unit at University of Hawaii at Hilo
PI: Dr. Helen Sofaer (USGS Research Ecologist at the Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center in Hawai'i)
Education:
PhD Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA (2025)
M.S Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Colins, CO, USA. (2020)
B.S. Biology, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam, USA. (2018)
Research Interest: Biological Invasion, invasive species' effect on biodiversity and ecosystem function, plant insect interaction, species loss & recovery, conservation, evolutionary ecology, & Equity in STEM.
Marcel Jardeleza PhD Presentation April 22, 2025Notes From My Desk:
Notes From My Desk:
October 23, 2025: It has been a wild summer and second half of the year! First off, I gave birth to a wonderful baby boy who hasn't let me sleep since June. I then start a post-doc position at UH Hilo in August! I am so excited to work with Dr. Helen Sofaer, who is a USGS scientist at Volcano Station! We will be modeling the detection patterns of an invasive beetle, Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (CRB), in Hawaii. There's a lot of cool full circle moments happening for me. First off, I am again working with the UH Hilo folks like Sharon Ziegler-Chong again who is pivotal in creating the PIPES program that inspired me to pursue science. So I get to serve Hawaii once more and help create solutions in mitigating the spread of CRB, which is a major pest for coconut trees. Additionally, I get to work with CRB, which was at the height of its invasion in Guam when I was an undergraduate student at UOG. I'm also getting to expand my modeling skill which I am very excited about. In addition to all of this, I am also trying to publish the cool work I did during my PhD. So many cool things in the works! I'll try to update my website when I have time, but for now stay tuned!
April 25, 2025: I finally presented my PhD work! It was so great to celebrate and present my work in front of so many wonderful people tuning in virtual and in person! I finished my MS during covid so the defense portion was virtual, which felt anti-climactic. This time I got to present it to a live audience and chat with folks afterwards, which made the hardwork I put in the presentation more rewarding. I'm not Dr. Jardeleza yet, but it feels great to be only a few steps away from that.
April 12, 2025: It's been a long time coming for an update, but this is probably one of the biggest updates. I will be defending my PhD thesis at the end of the month! Please check out the poster for more info and I'm very excited to share all the hard work I've put in for the last 5 years. I'm also very excited to be close to publishing all this work as well, so hopefully my next update is on getting my manuscripts accepted!
August 20, 2024: The new semester is here! A cool update is that I received the USDA NIFA AFRI Predoctoral Fellowship! (Check out the blurb I screenshotted in my CV tab). I submitted a proposal on "Assessing Herbivory and Predation on Herbivorous Arthropods on Crops After the Loss of Birds." This work will expand one of my chapters looking at herbivory on Guam (no birds) compared to nearby islands (with birds). Our preliminary results showed an interesting trend where Guam had higher herbivore damage compared to nearby islands. This work will allow us to focus more on crops and see if the loss of birds have also impacted local food production. Aside from this new project and fellowship opportunity, I'm hoping to publish most of my PhD work by the end of next year and find a job before the fellowship ends! The grind never seems to end for graduate students!
April 24, 2024: It's been a minute since my last update, but I've been deep in trying to finish up my PhD. I am currently analyzing and writing all 5 parts of my thesis. It will be nice to just focus on writing for the first time this summer as I have officially finished all fieldwork for my PhD. I finished my last fieldwork looking at changes in butterfly behavior in January and got to work with one of my original field assistants Steph. It was wonderful to get to spend time with her and talk about the plans she has for grad school after finishing at UOG soon. Some awesome news is that I got a cool award from Wiley as having one of the top cited papers in Ecological Entomology for 2022-2023. That was my MS thesis work and I'm very proud of that publication. It feels great that it's being cited and used in other people's work! Lastly, I am hoping to graduate by December 2024 and will be ready to get a job very soon. Please keep me in mind if there's some cool opportunities that arrise!
October 16, 2023: The semester is in full bloom and it's insane that the year is almost over! I'm currently getting ready to launch a final fieldwork for my dissertation in January 2024, so I'm excited to be back in the CNMI for a bit and to work with one of my first undergrad assistant from University of Guam again!
August 23, 2022: Please check out my ESA 2022 poster in my research page! Unfortunately, I didn't get to attend the conference in person again this year due to acute appendicitis :(. Maybe next year!
August 10, 2022: It has been a busy summer. I've just completed one of the longest and toughest fieldwork, came back to Colorado for family weddings and visits, and now I am getting ready to leave for ESA2022 in Montreal. It has been a busy, but I am blessed to have many opportunities to spend time with family. Time to grind gears again and get ready for prelims this semester. Wish me luck! :)
May 13, 2022: Fieldwork 2022 has officially started! I will be spending the next couple months in the CNMI studying the insect community. It has been almost life changing to see soo many birds that were once on Guam. I have also dusted off the old camera and took some new shots! Check out my photography page! Also, I am co-organizing the first ever Austronesian Entomologist meeting at EntoSoc2022 and I will be presenting a poster on my research at ESA2022! Lots of awesome things in the works!
Sept. 15, 2021: My first lead-author paper has been published at Ecological Entomology! I didn't think I would be this emotional, but I teared up seeing my name in my literature library. I've been working on this project since undergrad and it's amazing to see it finally complete. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/ZHAUHREDIAAZIK9F4JQ4?target=10.1111/een.13087
May 18, 2021: My first scientific paper has been accepted pending revision! So excited!
Apr. 29, 2021: Lots of update! Since my last post, I have submitted my D. suzukii paper from my MS for publication and I hope it gets accepted soon! I am also currently in quarantine on Guam for my first fieldwork for my PhD! It's so wild that I get to do useful work for my home and my community. Now let's hope that the fieldwork goes well! Lastly, I received some $$$ via the CSU Graduate Degree Program in Ecology SP21 Small Grant!
Feb 10, 2021: I'm hiring 2 University of Guam undergrads to work with me this summer! Please check out the internship page and share!
Jan 22, 2021: I won the CSU Agricultural Biology Louis G. Scholarship in Entomology Scholarship! The new year is off to a great start!
July 10, 2020: I am happy to announce that I am officially Master Marcel of Ecology (or something along those lines). I passed my defense and will then continue onto my PhD working with my same lab in the Fall. It's be a journey so far, but I'm excited to go into my next chapter, working more on Guam stuff! :)
June 11, 2020: Life's been hectic, but I have been working hard on finishing my thesis. I have moved my defense date and it will now be virtual and held on June 26, 2020! Check out my defense announcement!
Apr. 1, 2020: I turned a quarter century in the new century and I never thought I'd be in a crisis like we are experiencing today. Despite this pandemic turning our lives upside-down, I also feel that I have many things to be thankful for such as the ability to work from home and the security of my loved ones. Although I wish I could be home on Guam with my family at this time, travel is probably the last thing I should do and completing a MS in the middle of a pandemic is probably an accomplishment on its own. Mar. 6, 2020: Since my last update many things have happened. I have had my first ever co-authored paper published, won 2nd place for a poster at the 2020 FRSES, and set my defense date! Also, I'm excited to announce that I will be continuing with the Hufbauer Lab for my PhD in Fall 2020 doing some Guam invasive stuff! Wohoo!
Dec. 6, 2019: I'm so thankful and honored to receive this year's BSPM Master of Science Student Scholarship. I'm very happy to be a part of a great community in CSU that makes the extra effort to recognize its students.
Nov. 14, 2019: It's insane that this semester/year is coming to an end. There's been a lot of adjusting in grad school for me lately, but thanks to my support system I've been somehow managing. To the new grad students out there: make sure you create a system of support for yourself. Grad school is too hard to go at it alone.
Oct. 8, 2019: The bird experiment did not pan out as I hoped and unfortunately we may have to drop the project. This has been heartbreaking for me honestly, but I definitely learned a valuable lesson of letting things go. It just sucks to be okay with letting a project go in a field that measures hardwork/success in publications.
Sept. 26, 2019: After over a year of planning and near-mental breakdowns due to never ending permits my bird project is finally set to begin this weekend. After jumping over multiple hurdles, the next hurdle will probably whether I actually catch birds. Wish me luck!
Sept. 4, 2019: Wow, it's September already and this semester is really kicking my butt. I'm currently taking 3 classes, have a bird project in the works (permiting has put things on hold), and teaching 2 sections of Principles of Plant Physiology. Mental breaks and extracurriculars have been crucial for me.
July 19, 2019: This summer has gone by so fast! I just came back from a quick trip to the Philippines to see family, and now I'm back on the ground running continuing my temperature tests for my HI samples and preparing for my upcoming American Robin project. Wish me luck!
June 16, 2019: I have just completed a little over a month of fieldwork in Hilo, Hi. It has been such a challenging field season, which included extending my stay in order to capture enough specimens, but its finally done. This summer is going by so fast!
May 16, 2019: It has been a crazy and non-stop grinding week for me since I've arrived in Hilo, HI. I don't know how I've been able to balance field collections and finals, but at least I am officially done (with finals, I'm still setting traps out). Despite the craziness, I'm so thankful for this opportunity to come here and do research. I definitely feel like a scientist and I'm learning so much from simply trying to get things done so far away from Colorado.
May 12, 2019: I have officially hit the ground running starting the first fieldseason of my graduate career in Hilo, Hawaii. I'm working with my NSF-REU advisor Jonathan Koch once again and it's insane how my fly work has sort of made a full circle 2-years later. We visited some OG sites and ended intensive fieldwork with some delicious malasadas and lilikoi and lime IPA. Life is good (mostly, I still have to finish up my finals).
May 9, 2019: After straightening out a little bit of a mix up, I won the Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management William M. Brown Professional Development Award! It is a $500 travel grant that I will use towards my trip to the 2019 SACNAS conference in Honolulu, Hawaii in October! I'm super stoked and thankful for this opportunity!
Apr. 26, 2019: Just booked everything for my first field season as a grad student on the big island of Hawaii. I'll be collecting Drosophila suzukii (see research for more info) and conducting some plasticity experiments. It's been almost 2 years since I've been on HI and its crazy that I get to build upon my undergrad research. You really never know where life will take you.
Apr. 24, 2019: Our GDPE department held its first ever comedy/laugh and learn night where brave grad students were selected to try to explain science topics in a comedic fashion. I was one of the tributes. I had 5 min, 5 random slides (I didn't get em until 30min before), a stage and a crowd of people to explain evolution to. It worked out pretty well because I won 2nd place and a really cool hammock. Most importantly, I am officially the 2nd funniest person in GDPE.
Apr. 8, 2019: The long awaited verdict has been set and the winners for the 2019 NSF GRFP has been announced. Unfortunately, I did not receive the fellowship, but I did get 2019 NSF GRFP Honorable Mention (https://www.research.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do), which is still a great honor. The competition was tough, but there's always more grants and funding sources out there. Fighting!
Apr. 6, 2019: It's nearing the end of the semester and my permits for this coming field season isn't going as smoothly as I'd hope, so I decided to go skiing this weekend (work life balance is important). I'm happy to say that this island gal offically have a winter sport to enjoy.
Mar. 30, 2019: It has been such an eventful week! I was a graduate student evaluator for the 2019 MURALS, which is a symposium targeted towards undergraduates from minority groups and attended the Feminist Thought & Activism Conference (Check out my blurb in gradschoolife)! I also received the Spring 2019 GDPE Travel Grant! This funding will go towards my trip to the 2019 SACNAS Conference!
Mar. 22, 2019: My website is finally up! Please let me know what you think! I appreciate any constructive criticism!
Mar. 21, 2019: Spring break is already almost over and unsurprisingly my to-do list was much longer than my will to do things. I am nearing the completion of this site and I am very excited to share it with the world. Hopefully I figure out how to attach my domain very soon.
Mar. 13, 2019: Fort Collins and most of the midwest is going through a "Bomb Cyclone" and CSU is closed due to the weather. I've been forced to work from home, which is never as productive as when I'm in the grad office. I'm definitely missing the hot trophical weather on my island.
Mar. 6, 2019: Started building this site.
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