Profile
Daniela Zárate is a candidate for the Ph.D. in biology at the University of California, San Diego. Her dissertation research is an interdisciplinary enterprise centered on the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) and spans a comprehensive assessment of genomic ancestry in honey bees from across a broad geographic expanse as well as a behavioral study of aggression on both the individual and colony level. Daniela has been awarded the San Diego Fellowship, the UC San Diego's Chancellor Research Excellence Research Scholarship (CRES), and the National Science Fellowship Graduate Research Fellowships Program (NSF-GRFP). In addition, she was awarded the Jeanne Messier Memorial Grant by the section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution (EBE) which allowed her to conduct research in Panamá at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). She received a Bachelor of Arts in biology and chemistry from Williams College, where she was a recipient of the Allison-Davis Research Fellowship. Daniela has been involved in service and outreach throughout her journey in higher education and strongly believes in the value of diversity in academia as a mechanism through which to challenge institutional oppression of underserved communities. She currently serves as a course instructor in an initiative founded by BioEasi (the Biological Science's graduate student service organization) and CREATE (Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence) that brings science education to the incarcerated community of San Diego county. She also serves as a graduate mentor to several underrepresented undergraduate students in her laboratory and through the UC San Diego PATHS program. Daniela intends to pursue a professorship and continue to serve her community, her culture, and her biosphere as an advocate of social and environmental justice.
