Tess’s interest in herpetology was sparked when she was previously awarded with a fellowship from the Philippine Commission on Higher Education to the University of Kansas to complete her dissertation work on the phylogeography and conservation of the Philippine slender toads (genus Ansonia). In 2014, Tess was awarded a Fulbright Advanced Research Fellowship sponsored by Dr. Cameron Siler. Tess arrived in the Siler Lab at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma as a visiting professor in September 2014 to carry out a five month Fulbright program on her project “Species diversity and survival in a changing environment: Developing a new center for biodiversity conservation.” Her project aims to develop skillsets for a projected biodiversity center back at her home institution—Father Saturnino Urios University, Butuan City, southern Philippines. Dr. Sanguila will be working closely with the Siler Lab to receive training in curating and organizing natural history collections, databasing, the collection and analysis of molecular data, scientific illustration and writing, and education outreach. We are all tremendously excited to have her here!

Stay tuned for more updates from our visiting Fulbright Scholar.  Tess now has her own blog series.  Start reading here.