Isabel is currently a first-year graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill. Originally from Salinas, Ecuador, she completed her B.S. at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. She was scuba certified in 2014 after her parents encouraged her to enroll in the course. Fast forward, she has dived across the tropics including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Indonesia, and in 2021 she completed her Divemaster training. She studies how variable biotic and abiotic conditions shape trophic interactions in marine subtidal communities in the Galapagos. Through research, Isabel seeks to contribute to policymaking decisions to release conservation strategies built upon complex knowledge of the archipelago’s ecosystems.

‍