# Recipients ## expand\_more ## Active Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellows [### Valentine Bouju ](/people/valentine-bouju)Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2024 - August 2026 Brian Farrell Lab I am a palaeontologist fascinated by amber (fossilized resin) and its exquisitely preserved inclusions. By enclosing samples of arthropods and plants from a long gone ecosystem, amber offers a window to past environments. I specialized in the study of... ![a person sanding in tall green grass in a cloud forest](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-01/Valentine%20Bouju.jpg?itok=o3vzz9UH) [### Rodrigo T. Figueroa ](/people/rodrigo-t-figueroa)Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2024 - 2026 Stephanie Pierce Lab Rodrigo has a passion for fossil collection and taxonomy since childhood when he found his first fossils. Years of fossil hunting and reading about extinct faunas forged his interest in understanding how life on Earth has evolved and changed over geologic... ![a person standing outside, with a rock wall and vegetation background](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mcz/files/rodrigo_tinoco_figueroa.png?itok=7uZ7Zt71) [### Francesc Pérez Peris ](/people/francesc-perez-peris)Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, May 2025 - July 2026 Javier Ortega-Hernández Lab I am an invertebrate paleontologist interested on the evolution of early Paleozoic arthropods, specifically a group of extinct arthropods called trilobites. Most of my research is focused on the trilobite diversification during the Ordovician Radiation... ![a person smiling at the camera, in front of a lake, forest, and snow-covered mountains](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-03/FPP%20image%20rs.jpg?itok=lr_1OQK5) [### Willians Porto ](/people/willians-porto)Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2025 - 2027 Gonzalo Giribet Lab I am a Brazilian biologist passionate about unraveling the diversity of arachnids, with a special focus on harvestmen of the family Triaenonychidae. My research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of taxonomic characteristics in species delimitation, using... ![a person looking at the camera, wearing a helmet with a headlamp, outside with greenery and mountains in the background](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-03/Pic_2.jpg?itok=0Pmt628V) [### Catalina Romero-Ortiz ](/people/catalina-romero-ortiz)Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2024 - 2026 Gonzalo Giribet Lab Catalina, a Colombian biologist, is driven by her passion to uncover the true diversity of Pseudoscorpiones in the Neotropics. Her research is dedicated to evaluating the effectiveness of taxonomic characteristics in species delimitation and delving into... ![a person standing outside with a valley, stream and mountain background](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mcz/files/laguna_negra_santander_0.jpeg?h=da333ee7&itok=akN3zLpW) ### Past Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellows expand\_more ### Sonali Garg (2022-2025) **Project Title:** Integrative approaches to unravel frog diversity in India **Faculty Sponsor:** James Hanken After this fellowship, Sonali joined the Blackburn Lab at the University of Florida as a postdoctoral researcher. ### [Paula Rodríguez Flores](https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/paula-rodriguez-flores) (2021-2023) **Project Title:** Systematic revision of worldwide deep sea squat lobsters **Faculty Sponsor:** [Gonzalo Giribet](https://giribetgroup.oeb.harvard.edu/) Paula is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History. ### Miquéias Ferrão (2020-2021) **Project Title:** Description of new species of anurans from Brazilian Amazonia through integrative taxonomy **Faculty Sponsor:** [James Hanken](https://hankenlab.oeb.harvard.edu/) After his fellowship, Miquéias moved to a postdoctoral fellowship with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. He is currently a postdoc at the Federal University of Goiás. ### [Cong Liu](https://congliu0514.wixsite.com/mysite) (2020-2022) **Project Title:** Ant biodiversity in China's Hengduan Mountain region **Faculty Sponsor:** [Naomi Pierce](https://piercelab.oeb.harvard.edu/) After his fellowship, Cong joined UMass Boston as a postdoc. ### Shinichi Nakahara (2022-2024) **Project Title:** Documenting and explaining the high diversity of Euptychiina, a lineage of cryptic Amazonian butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) **Faculty Sponsor:** [Naomi Pierce](https://mcz.harvard.edu/people/naomi-e-pierce) ### Stephen Pates (Agassiz Fellow, 2019-2020) **Project Title:** Beyond the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang: Systematics, phylogeny and evolution of Radiodonta (stem-group Euarthropoda) from untapped Cambrian Lagerstätten **Faculty Sponsor:** [Javier Ortega-Hernández](https://ortega-hernandezlab.oeb.harvard.edu/) After his fellowship, Stephen joined the University of Cambridge Department of Zoology as a Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow and will join the University College London as a Lecturer in Invertebrate Paleobiology in 2025. ### Thalles Platiny Lavinscky Pereira (2023-2025) **Project Title:** 50 new species for the 49th state - Alaska: using integrative taxonomy to illuminate a dark taxon (Diptera: Phoridae) **Faculty Sponsor:** Brian Farrell ### [Whitney Preisser](https://whitneypreisser.weebly.com/) (2021-2022) **Project Title:** Revealing the hidden diversity of digenean trematodes within the MCZ Ichthyology Collection **Faculty Sponsor:** [Gonzalo Giribet](https://giribetgroup.oeb.harvard.edu/) and [George Lauder](https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~glauder/) After her fellowship, Whitney joined the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Kennesaw State University as Assistant Professor of Disease Ecology. ### Paulino Siqueira Ribeiro (2023-2025) **Project Title:** Taxonomic and phylogenetic revision of the subgenus *Decamyia* Dyar, genus *Wyeomyia* Theobald (Diptera: Culicidae) with a description of new species **Faculty Sponsor:** Brian Farrell ### [Tiago Simões](https://tiago-simoes.com/) (Agassiz Fellow, 2019-2021) **Project Title:** The long-term impact of a climate change-driven mass extinction on global biodiversity and evolutionary patterns in reptiles **Faculty Sponsor:** [Stephanie Pierce](https://stephaniepiercelab.oeb.harvard.edu/) Tiago is currently an incoming faculty member in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. ### Diego Biston Vaz (2020-2022) **Project Title**: Taxonomic review of dwarfgobies, *Eviota* Jenkins, 1903, one of the most diverse genus of marine fishes **Faculty Sponsor:** [George Lauder](https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~glauder/) After his fellowship, Diego joined the University of Guam as a Senior Researcher (Ichthyologist) and Associate Curator of the Biorepository. He is now the Senior Curator of Fishes at the Natural History Museum.