Undergraduate Spotlight Isa Mendoza

Isa Mendoza

Isa Mendoza, a junior honors student majoring in Biology, was selected for a platform presentation at the Rice BioSciences Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium (GCURS). Her talk, titled, “Characterizing genetic variation in hormonal pathways associated with the evolution of parental care in darters” described her work investigating social behavior in darter fish, an emerging model of evolution. Isa received a travel grant from Rice and was awarded Outstanding Talk for her session. Ms. Mendoza is mentored by Dr. Rachel Moran, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology who uses genomic and behavioral approaches to understand evolution in fish species. This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation to Dr. Moran.