B. Karina Montero

Research

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of interesting research questions and study systems. Intrigued by the cryptic behaviour of neotropical bats, I pursued a doctoral degree at North Dakota State University were I studied the acoustic and social behaviour of a leaf-roosting bat species. I subsequently joined the University of Hamburg as a research associate to study the links between animal health and conservation of highly threatened populations of mouse lemurs in Madagascar. My current post-doctoral research  at University of Oviedo aims at elucidating the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms driving a recent avian radiation in Macaronesia (the Fringilla genus). I focus on bacterial community assemblages and parasite co-evolution, an axis of evolutionary diversification.

Teaching experience

In addition to research I have been consistently involved in teaching. As a graduate student, I taught Introductory Biology Labs for non-biology majors. This is a student-focused class under the STEM education initiative with the main objective of developing scientific skills by promoting active group discussions, writing and data analysis. At University of Hamburg, I devised modules focused on data analyses, including introductory level courses for bachelor students (Introduction to Statistical Programming Language and Data Analysis in Ecology using R) as well as a master level course (Multivariate Analysis using R). My ultimate aim whilst teaching courses on data analyses is to find ways to unblock students from the intimidating world of statistics and programming languages. In addition to on-campus courses, I was invited to organise and teach a workshop on ecological data analysis at Copperbelt University, in Zambia. This workshop was a product of the education objectives of the the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL).