Social Spiders

By Derreatha Juarez

Gabriella “Gabby” Najm ’14 opens up about her fear of spiders and the symbiotic relationship she now has with them as she works on her graduate research project.

“I suffered from severe arachnophobia until I was in college. One day when I was in middle school, there was a spider crawling in the corner of the windshield of my mom’s car, and I began crying uncontrollably!”

This confession may not sound unusual for many people, but it is for Gabriella “Gabby” Najm, Class of 2014. Since graduating from Chaminade, she has actually developed a close relationship with and deep understanding and appreciation of spiders.

As an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), Gabby studied in the relatively small College of Creative Studies, where she majored in biology. She graduated in three years as the college allowed students to take as many courses as they wanted each semester. Gabby explains that the program was challenging and exciting since she was “able to take a variety of research-based courses as an undergraduate, including classes in ecology and evolutionary biology.” These subjects soon developed into passions for Gabby.

In her second year at UCSB, Gabby enrolled in a general animal behavior class taught by Professor Jonathan Pruitt, currently the Canada 150 Research Chair in Biological Dystopias at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Highly inspired by Professor Pruitt, Gabby inquired if she could be his teaching assistant, and he agreed. In her third year of college, Gabby aided

Dr. Pruitt as he revamped the animal behavior class curriculum. Acting as Pruitt’s primary assistant, Gabby helped organize over 100 undergraduate students in the new class. The scope and sequence of the class narrowed, and the material now focused on the study of social spiders.

Gabby’s voice comes alive as she discusses the subjects of her work, once her greatest fear. She explains that “there are over 40,000 species of spiders throughout the world, and only thirty species possess the trait of being ‘social.’ Shyness is an overarching character of spiders, but when even one bold spider, called a ‘keystone individual,’ is injected into a colony of typical spiders, the group changes and becomes four times as fast to respond to stimuli.”

The most engaging element of her research into the world of spiders is the qualities that spiders exhibit in their social constructs that parallel human interaction. Spiders gravitate toward each other and live in colonies ranging from a small number to thousands of members. Gabby’s research centers upon spiders that inhabit South Africa, and they capture food together while collectively caring for their young and protecting their communities. The distinct personality differences in spiders intrigue Gabby, and in reference to a recent Harvard study, she explains: “Just as one aggressive human can influence a workplace, the same is true for spiders. When that individual leaves in either species, the environment changes again.”

Gabby never imagined the extensive role that writing would play in her science classes and fieldwork, but “both the critical thinking and analytic writing skills so emphasized at Chaminade helped tremendously” in her studies and work.

Gabby took a year off from school after earning her undergraduate degree to build her résumé. As a scientist, she realizes the importance of fieldwork, and in 2017, she reached out to Noa Pinter-Wollman, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to work with her and gain more experience. Gabby is now following the educational path of Dr. Pinter-Wollman as she just completed her first year of a five-year Ph.D. Program at UCLA studying ecology and evolutionary biology, and she plans to one day enjoy a career as a college professor, perhaps somewhere in the Midwest.

Gabby urges high school students to explore science-related opportunities in their communities at colleges or local organizations. She also emphasizes the importance of writing in any career. She never imagined the extensive role that writing would play in her science classes and fieldwork, but “both the critical thinking and analytic writing skills so emphasized at Chaminade helped tremendously” in her studies and work. She also envisions that newer programs and classes at Chaminade such as the AP Capstone Program and coding courses will have great potential for budding scientists. She reflects that when students “come up with an original idea, work through a literature review, learn research methodologies, and practice computer programming, the benefit for their possible future in science is valuable.”

A scientist who innately appreciates both studying in the classroom and lab and exploring nature, Gabby offers sound advice to high school students: “Examining the world around us is really cool. Be sure to always observe the details in our world on both a small-scale, like inspecting spiders, and on a larger scale, such as caring for the environment.”