Marina Stoilova

Marina Stoilova is a 2024-2028 Self Graduate Fellow pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas. She completed her bachelor's degree in biology from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara with a minor in philosophy. Using bioinformatics and other methods, she studied the role of light-sensing protein-encoding genes (opsins) across cell types in Hydra vulgaris (a freshwater relative of jellyfish, coral, and other cnidarians). As an American Academy of Underwater Sciences certified SCUBA diver, she assisted kelp forest and coral reef monitoring programs through Reef Check and NSF-LTERs. For her Ph.D, she plans to combine her computational and field background with the molecular expertise of the Cartwright Lab to study complex traits in jellyfish and other cnidarian relatives. Her research questions focus on the evolutionary histories and developmental biology of venom and visual systems. How did they originate? How do they change over the life cycle and ecological transitions? How do they change over evolutionary timescales? 

Mentor: Dr. Paulyn Cartwright Baumgartner Professor of Biology