Mary Jade Farruggia
Biological Sciences
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Mary Jade (MJ) Farruggia is a PhD student in Dr. Meryl Mims’ lab, studying communities of desert amphibians and aquatic invertebrates in Southeast Arizona. She is interested in understanding how human water use and management affects aquatic community structure and function, and is excited about improving science communication and accessibility.
MJ earned a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology, Behavior and Evolution from the University of California, San Diego. As an undergraduate, she worked at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography on projects evaluating the effect of anthropogenic stressors, such as storm drain runoff and tidepool tourism, on benthic invertebrate communities in the intertidal zone. She also volunteered with the San Diego Natural History Museum herpetology department, assisting with digitizing collections and citizen science efforts. After graduating, MJ worked as a field technician studying amphibian/parasite dynamics in small pond systems in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Then, she participated in fisheries monitoring and research, first with the California Department of Water Resources, and then with the USGS California Water Science Center. [/one_half]
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[/one_half_last]Water has served as a unifying theme in her experiences, and with the help of IGC, will continue to work to collaborate and communicate across disciplines, through water!
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