Hello Science Corps Followers! Today we would like to introduce you to the second of our current amazing fellows, Swastika Issar.

Swastika is an evolutionary biologist from New Delhi, India. Her research is focused on how natural selection shapes interactions within social groups, species and ecological communities. She recently finished her PhD at the University of Cambridge on a Dr. Manmohan Singh Scholarship from St. John’s College. Swastika’s work at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior on the ecological and life-history correlates of social behavior in cichlid fish of the Great African Lakes has been funded by the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior in Konstanz. She is a guest lecturer in Global Change to undergraduate students in Environmental Engineering and Resource Management at the University of Applied Sciences (HTWG), Konstanz. Currently she is teaching and doing research at CVIF Philippines. We asked her a few questions about her fellowship before she started and wanted to share them with you all.

1. What are you most excited about for the fellowship?

Teaching and developing a research methods and biology curriculum as part of Science Corps’
mission of empowering students to pursue higher education in STEM fields, is an important next
step for my growth as an academic and as a diversity advocate at the forefront of cultural
changes towards greater inclusivity in STEM. I’m most excited about the practical research
component of my fellowship where I get to demonstrate how we apply the concepts we’re
learning about in class in the real world and how theory translates to research. Facilitating
independent learning in this way allows me to be part of my students’ journey of personal growth
and exploration.

2. What are you most nervous about?

The frantic rush of getting set for my travel to the Philippines so soon hasn’t left me much time for
nerves! I’m hopeful that navigating the language and cultural divide between me and my students
and colleagues at CVIF high school would be easy because of our shared quest for knowledge
and understanding the world around us.

3. What do you hope to gain from the fellowship?

What excites me most about a career in scientific research is the opportunity to probe the very
fundamentals of how life evolves and continues to diversify on our planet. My postdoctoral
research and teaching experience in the near future will set the stage for my career as an
independent researcher telling stories that inspire, push boundaries, and provide insights about
the inner workings of the natural world. Through developing hands-on research projects with the
students and tapping into our cross-cultural sense of collective curiosity during my Science Corps
fellowship at the Central Visayan Institute Foundation, I want to better contextualise the scientific
questions that drive me as I prepare to lead my own research group in the future.