Biology M t

By Tricia Schwe en

When Sierra Rodriguez was eight years old, she won a ticket to get a kiss from a Beluga whale during a family trip to San Antonio’s SeaWorld.

It’s a moment the first-generation Texas A&M University-San Antonio student remembers every day, thanks to a faded snapshot she keeps on display in her apartment. Bent over and smiling, Rodriguez enjoys the keepsake showing the whale pressing its head against her cheek. “I see it every day. Little Sierra would be proud, I think,” she said.

That kiss set her on a path to becoming a scientist, an accomplishment she can celebrate as soon as she graduates in May 2023 as part of the first cohort of master’s degree students in biology.

“I’m really excited that this program has been established here,” Rodriguez said. “I’m very excited about graduation, but a little sad. I’ve built a nice community here.”

Rodriguez has always been drawn to science and the natural world around her — especially growing up in the Texas Hill Country. Animal behavior piqued her interest beginning with her pet snake Nagini when she was 16 years old.

“I think I’ve always been conservation-minded, especially growing up in Texas and all these beautiful open green spaces,” she said. “That’s what drives me to do ecological research — to preserve these places for generations to come.”

She tried a couple of times to find the right program of study and the right school to complete her degree. Rodriguez said she got lost in the larger classes she found at larger universities. Inspired by friends attending A&M-San Antonio, she decided to enroll.

Rodriguez found her home — despite the COVID-19 pandemic — when she transferred to A&M-San Antonio in the spring of 2020. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in biology in August 2021 and that same month resumed her studies at A&M-San Antonio in pursuit of a master’s degree in biology.

“There’s a different culture,” she said of A&M-San Antonio. “We just feel like we know each other. I know all my professors and if I don’t have [classes with] them now, I had them in undergrad.”

Taking advantage of r e ch o tuniti

As an undergraduate student, Rodriguez first conducted field research in Greece, earning a grant from the National Research Foundation, which funded eight weeks of research and study abroad. On the island of Lesbos, she studied honeybee behavior, her first experience and interaction with pollinators. “That changed my life,” she said. “That was the catalyst to my budding career as a biologist.”

In Lesbos, Rodriguez worked with other students to develop a method to train honeybees, she said.

“Every day, we would go out into the garden and conduct our experiments,” she said.

Her research then became part of a manuscript. She served as its lead writer, and in mid-February, she learned it had been accepted for publication in the Journal of Comparative Psychology. “It feels so good,” she said. “I haven’t seen the proofs yet where it has my name in writing but it feels good to wrap up that chapter.”

It represents her second piece of published research. Rodriguez coauthored her first piece in the Bulletin of Insectology in 2021 about a separate experiment she conducted in Greece which examined the effects of pesticides on ants.

Rodriguez next conducted field research on Bureau of Land Management property in New Mexico called Rattlesnake Canyon Habitat Management Area, federal land that is leased to natural gas and oil companies.

She described it as “the perfect place” to study elements she is exploring in her thesis. She questions: “Do light and sound affect insect diversity?”

Field research can be labor intensive and, in New Mexico, it meant a lot of hiking, tolerating hot weather and setting up heavy equipment for experiments. For example, she had to erect heavy lights used to simulate light pollution in a place that isn’t polluted.

She discovered the land to be an excellent venue to “manipulate conditions to simulate light and noise pollution,” she said.

While in New Mexico, Rodriguez said she worked closely with Bridget Battaglia, an undergraduate student at A&M-San Antonio. “She was a critical element to collecting my data out there in New Mexico,” she said. “We hiked up and down that area.” Bridget also turned out to be “a wealth of knowledge about insects.”

Fieldwork isn’t for everyone, Rodriguez said, because you have to be passionate about the work. “This wasn’t a Hilton experience,” she said. “We camped. There were days with no showers.” She considered it among “the things you do for the things you love.”

Now, Rodriguez said, she loves her time in the research lab and learning from Dr. Jennifer Phillips, assistant professor of biology, whose primary areas of research are birds and pollinators, including butterflies and bees.

Rodriguez is studying butterflies found in the landscaped areas of campus that have been strategically created for monarch butterfly and pollinator habitats.

Her research and master’s thesis focus on sensory pollution, and the synergistic effects of light and noise on animals. This pollution is typically “caused by humans,” Rodriguez explained. “How does noise affect animals? How does light affect animals? What’s interesting is that no one is asking these questions.” She adds, “You don’t need much when you study bugs, just go out and find the flowers.”

Rodriguez said she’s found great support, access to resources and endless opportunities at A&M-San Antonio. As a graduate student, Rodriguez also had the opportunity to present her research over the summer at the Animal Behavior Society Conference in Costa Rica.

Phillips, Rodriguez and another graduate student, Alfredo Paul Llamas, traveled together to present the group’s first year of research data. Battaglia also attended after winning the prestigious Turner Award, named after Charles H. Turner, one of the first African-American researchers in animal behavior.

She prepared a poster presentation on the research that was well received. Six months later, when she was further along in the research, she gave an oral presentation at another conference.

Rodriguez said she is ready to take her research out to the Espada Property (see page 13) as well. It’s one more learning opportunity that the University is able to provide, she said. She doesn’t take those opportunities or the mentorship of her professors for granted.

She said one of her mentors, Dr. Marvin Lutnesky, chair of the department of life sciences, is helping her take the next step, applying for doctoral programs to pursue her Ph.D. She spent some time working alongside him when she volunteered to study frogs.

“Doc is the type of professor I want to be,” Rodriguez said. “He’s fair. He’s equal. He treats all students fairly. He knows the subject matter well.”

She hopes to return to San Antonio so she can give back through teaching. “I think that would be ideal,” she said.