The Team

I have an ever growing research team that works on projects in the field, the laboratory, and our field laboratory.

Mrinalini Erkenswick Watsa

Extracting a bat from a mist net for disease screening. Los Amigos Biological Field Station, June 2018. Photo credit: Ryan Peters Photography.

In addition to my research fellowship, I also serve as the President and Senior Research Scientist for Field Projects International.

Download my CV.

Site Co-Director: Gideon Erkenswick Watsa

Gideon is a disease ecologist and geneticist who has been monitoring the primate community at Los Amigos for nearly 5 years. Through his work, we now have a clear idea of which parasites these primates host, providing a crucial baseline reading necessary for the detection of future disease outbreaks. Ultimately, his research has close ties to our lab’s interests in survival and fitness. He is also the Treasurer and Senior Research Scientist with Field Projects International.

FIELD RESEARCH TEAM

Efstathia Robakis

Effie is an Associate Research Scientist with FPI and is completing her PhD on vocal communication, space use, territoriality, and dispersal in sympatric callitrichids at Washington University in Saint Louis.

Matthew DeVries

Matt is a Visiting Research Scientist with FPI and is completing his Master’s research on individual behavioural ecology as impacted by edge environments among callitrichids at the University of Toronto.

Alice Poirier

Alice is a Visiting Research Scientist with FPI and is completing her Ph.D. on olfactory communication in callitrichids at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England.

Lais Moreira

Lais is completing her doctoral thesis at the University of Calgary, Canada on visual signalling in wild tamarins.

Alexandra Sacco

Alex is completing her Master’s thesis at Central Washington University on the correlates of health and physiology in wild tamarins.

Krista Banda

Kris us a Visiting Research Scientist with FPI and is completing her Master’s research on seasonality as a mediator of parasite richness among saddleback tamarins at Central Washington State University.

Ana Priscila Peralta Aguilar

Ana is a wildlife veterinarian with an interest in human-wildlife conflicts and a focus on primate behaviour and health.

Giancarlo Inga Diaz

Gian is also a wildlife veterinarian but his interest lies more with avian health.

LABORATORY RESEARCH TEAM

Samantha Lopez Clinton

Sam is a senior undergraduate biology major from Mexico City working on genetic screening for trichromacy and imaging of dental wear in callitrichids. She hopes to go to graduate school in primate biology in order to eventually work on habitat conservation and natural resource management in Mexico.

Aashna Narang

Aashna is a senior majoring in environmental biology with a minor in French. She is keenly interested in wildlife and has spent time studying primates in the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, as well as working with leeches (!) in the forests of Southern India. She loves the field and working in a laboratory setting.

LABORATORY ALUMNI

Gary Yan

Gary studies both anthropology and biology. What interests him the most is the connection between human culture and evolution, and how technology, language, and organization have allowed the human species to shape itself over time.

Catherine Cumbe

Cat is a junior majoring in Anthropology (Global Health and the Environment) and Biology. She joined the lab because it would be a great way to expand her interest in physical anthropology. She is also very interested in the study of primates, so she is glad she can take part in it even if it involves studying their faeces (!).