I study how personality is associated with different physiological mechanisms. My overarching goal is to better understand why we see population variation from the perspective of studying the individual. My current research is conducted in laboratory settings which allows me to study interacting physiological mechanisms in controlled environments. I currently study acute stress responses in autonomic and endocrine systems, innate and adaptive immune function, gut microbiome diversity, and neuronal function. By collecting these cross-physiological system data, I can determine the networks that underlie behavioral phenotypes.

I am a third year PhD student at Penn State University. I study how physiological mechanisms interact and are associated with personality. My lab asks questions to understand why we see differences between individuals and to better understand life-long fitness and health consequences from these physiological differences. My goals are to better understand why we see population variation and understand the mechanisms allowing flexibility or stability in changing environments. To answer this question, I plan to study different physiological systems and create an integrated physiological profile to understand underlying mechanisms that result in varying fitness and health outcomes.

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My research projects integrate several levels of organization from cellular to ecosystem level. Currently, the research in my laboratory focuses on interaction biology of cnidarian holobiont members at ecological and evolutionary scales though more recently I have started to pivot towards conservation biology, social sciences, and policy in the marine realm and local and global scales.

Mónica trained as a marine biologist at the University of Miami. She did a first postdoc at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA on evolution of eukaryotes and a second postdoc at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Mónica took a research scientist position at the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, CA where she started her work on coral genomics. After 8 years at the University of California Merced, she relocated to Penn State University where she is a Professor of Biology.

The focus of the Miller Lab is to investigate changes in the fluid dynamic environment of organisms as they grow or shrink in size over evolutionary or developmental time. In particular, we are interested in the efficiency of various mechanisms of fluid transport and locomotion. Our approach to these problems is to use kinematic and morphometric data to design physical models and numerical simulations. These models and simulations are then used to better understand the fluid dynamic forces experienced by organisms. Our work focuses on a few of model systems: 1) flight adaptations in the smallest flying insects, such as thrips and parasitoid wasps, 2) the mechanisms of blood pumping during development in the embryonic heart and over evolutionary time in chordate hearts, and 3) feeding currents generated by the upside down jellyfish.

Miller majored in the biological sciences at the University of Chicago, where she graduated with honors in 1995. After a master's degree in zoology at Duke University in 1999, she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics in 2004 at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. Her dissertation, A Computational Study of Flight in the Smallest Insects, was supervised by Charles S. Peskin.

After postdoctoral research at the University of Utah, she joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007, as an assistant professor of mathematics and adjunct assistant professor of biology. She became a full professor in 2018, before moving to the University of Arizona.

My lab investigates how human-induced rapid environmental changes influence the physiology, morphology, and behavior of wild vertebrates. Our field-based, interdisciplinary research approach addresses mechanistic, ecological, and conservation questions to advance our understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic changes, like introduced species and climate change. Our recent focus has been on how emerging and spreading diseases are linked to measures of physiology and behavior in wild songbirds.

After earning my Master's in Biology at the Paris Ecole Normal Supérieure and Paris University VI, I completed my PhD in Animal Behavior at the University of California Davis. I pursued a postdoctoral position in Dr. Britt Heidinger's lab and am now an Assistant Professor of Biology at California Lutheran University.

My research program explores how abiotic and biotic variables interact to determine the structure of sea urchin and algae populations. I specialize in understanding 1) the interaction between sea urchins and algae under climate change, and 2) the plasticity of the sea urchin adhesion in changing environmental conditions. I have a strong experimental design and biostatistical background and my research approach combine field and laboratory experiments in both intertidal and subtidal environments.

I obtained my undergrad degree in Marine Biology in Chile (I am Chilean). I obtained a scholarship to do a PhD in Biology at Laval University in Quebec, Canada where I worked with the population ecology of sea urchins. I then did a teaching postdoc at Villanova University where I started working on the adhesive system of sea urchins which incorporates biomechanics. I did a second postdoc at the Friday Harbor Laboratory (U. Washington) where I continue studying the adhesive system of sea urchins, but from a ecological perspective.

Developmental physiology. Control of size and shape in development. Polyphenisms. Allometry. Pattern formation.
I do wet-lab research on the above systems. I also do a lot of mathematical modeling of those systems.
In addition, I collaborate with Mike Reed (Duke Mathematcis) in modeling metabolic systems relevant to human health, in which we study the mecahnsism of robustness sand homeostasis.

I have been a Full Professor at Duke University since 1987.

I am broadly interested in the biomechanics of feeding and locomotion with a particular focus on plethodontid salamanders. I have contributed to studies of their ballistic tongue projection performance. The majority of my work has been investigating adhesion, clinging, and climbing in plethodontid salamanders to try to determine what attachment mechanisms they're using, how strong they are, what surfaces they can stick to, and how that might relate to microhabitat choices, climbing kinematics, and morphological variation of bodies, feet, and tails. As a direct result of frequently encountering gravid female timber rattlesnakes at salamander field sites, I have also started studying gravid female behavior and maternal care in timber rattlesnakes to better understand the effects of maternal care (or sometimes, lack thereof) in this species.

I’m an assistant professor in anatomy and physiology at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I teach human anatomy and physiology courses, as well as an undergraduate comparative biomechanics course, a non-majors human biology course and a first-year seminar in the biology of monsters. My research interests include biomechanics, functional morphology, and physiology of reptiles and amphibians, with a special focus on plethodontid salamanders and their climbing performance. I am also studying timber rattlesnake maternal care using camera trapping.