cham0138@umn.edu

B.S. Agriculture; Animal Science/Entomology, Ohio State University, 1998

Ph.D. candidate; Advisor: Dr. Ralph Holzenthal

From the time I was knee high to a hermit crab I've always been captivated by the diversity of organisms I encountered while growing up in Nicaragua. Our family's innumerable outings to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua set the stage for my interests in taxonomy and biology as I collected sea shells and tirelessly spent hours observing the many interesting sea creatures going about their business on the seashore. To my delight, while in college, I stumbled on the field of taxonomy and the world of entomology. From that point on I've been devoted to documenting, describing, identifying, illustrating, curating and classifying insect diversity, while enjoying every minute of it.

My dissertation research consists of a revision of the Neotropical species of the caddisfly genera Polyplectropus and Antillopsyche and a phylogenetic analysis of the cosmopolitan family Polycentropodidae using morphological and molecular characters. I am also interested in documenting the caddisfly diversity of Nicaragua. More recently, however, I have been working with Dr. Alexander Konstantinov, USDA, Smithsonian Institution, on several biodiversity and comparative morphology studies of Neotropical Cryptocephalini (Chrysomelidae). My long-term goals are aimed at documenting biodiversity, particularly for the taxa and geographic regions mentioned above.