Dr Isabel Castro Research Associate
Isabel grew up in Colombia (South America). She is a behavioural and conservation biologist and a lecturer at Massey University (Palmerston North, New Zealand). Isabel has a B.Sc. (microbiology) from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia (1984), a M.Sc. degree (environmental biology), from Eastern Illinois University, USA (1987), and a Ph.D. (behavioural ecology) from Massey University, New Zealand (1996).
During her M.Sc., Isabel had a six-month internship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. After finishing her M.Sc., she worked as an ecologist for two years on the Galápagos Islands, where she was first Associate Scientist and later Acting Head of the Ornithology Area at the Charles Darwin Research Station. Isabel's Ph.D. thesis dealt with the behavioural ecology and management of hihi (Notiomystis cincta), a native and threatened New Zealand honeyeater. In 1995, she was one of the first recipients of the prestigious Marsden Fund Grants. The Grant was awarded to look at the evolution of mating systems by researching the mating system of Hihi. She is a science advisor to the Hihi Recovery Team.
Isabel has experience in course design, lecturing, laboratory and field research at Massey University, and has incorporated microbiology, histology and DNA fingerprinting in her work. Isabel has a particular interest in making science accessible to the general public.
Isabel is a research associate and guest lecturer at EcoQuest.