"When I moved here from the Bahamas in 2020, in the middle of all things COVID, I knew nothing about New Orleans, apart from Mardi Gras. Outside of that, I literally just came here because Alex Gunderson was a P.I. and he studied thermal tolerance in lizards.
I study lizards currently and their thermal physiology in terms of how they are adapting to the environment. This summer I undertook collecting samples. And samples equate to… lizards. I went out into neighborhoods. I caught them alive. And I even like, released them back when I was done with them 4-6 weeks later.
I'm testing how urbanization, which is essentially making environments a lot hotter than they were historically, is impacting, these animals' thermal tolerance. If we understand like in, say, the suburban areas, that it is a lot hotter and individuals are having to adapt or to evolve to compensate for that heat increase, we can then sort of look at that and say, "Alright, we need to think more smartly about development and how we develop areas for people to live in."
---Ph. D Student, School of Science and Engineering
