Dominic Evangelista

Dominic Evangelista is an assistant professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research aims to infer phylogenies of cockroaches and termites using genome-scale data, map biological trends over evolutionary histories, and to improve upon phylogenetic methods. 
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Jessica Ware

Dr. Jessica Ware is a curator at the American Museum of Natural History where she serves as Chair of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology. 


Dr. Ware’s research focuses on the evolution of behavioral and physiological adaptations in insects, with an emphasis on how these occur in Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) and Dictyoptera (termites, cockroaches, and mantises). Her active research program studies insect systematics, with an emphasis on the Odonata and the Dictyoptera but in her lab they work actively on Hemiptera, Strepsiptera, Plecoptera, Grylloblattodea and Apidae as well. She has been an active member and leader of several transformative transcriptomic, phylogenomic, genetic and morphological projects that aimed to resolve the insect tree of life, revise dragonfly and damselfly taxonomy, explore termite and cockroach ecology (especially diet), and determine population level variation among tropical and arctic taxa. Through these projects she has published over 80 peer reviewed papers.

Dr. Ware holds a BSc from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and a PhD from Rutgers, New Brunswick. She was awarded a PECASE medal from the US government for her work on insect evolution. Dr. Ware served on the Governing Board of the Entomological Society of America for 3 years. She served as Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at the Society of Systematic Biologists for 3 years. Dr. Ware is the past president of the Worldwide Dragonfly Association and the past president of the Entomological Society of America. She is president-elect of the Society of Systematic Biologists. Dr. Ware is co-founder of Entomologists of Color and serves on the board of Black In Natural History Museums. She serves as co-chair for the AMNH Pride group. ​
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Lauren Esposito

Dr. Lauren Esposito is an arachnologist and evolutionary biologist. They have traveled around the world discovering new species and documenting life on earth, and their current research investigates the evolution of spiders and scorpions, with a focus on tropical islands. Dr. Esposito got their start in STEM as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at El Paso, and went on to complete a MS/PhD at the American Museum of Natural History in conjunction with the City University of New York, focusing on the evolution of a medically important group of scorpions in North America. In June of 2018, Dr. Esposito launched 500 Queer Scientists, a visibility campaign for LGBTQ+ people working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and STEM-supporting careers. Dr. Esposito has been honored for their efforts with the Out to Innovate Walt Westman Award, and a commendation from the California State Senate. Finally, Dr. Esposito is the co-founder and director of a science, education, and conservation non-profit called Islands & Seas, which runs a research and education center in Baja California Sur, Mexico. 

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MEGAN WILSON

Megan loves termites.

Melissa SANCHEZ HERRERA

Melissa loves studying damselflies.

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