SAMANTHA SAWYER is a PhD student in the FLIES Facility. She received a BS in Biology from Bridgewater State University in 2017 where she contributed to several ecological research projects, including impacts of the invasive Asian Shore Crab on rocky intertidal zones in Southern New England, and observing vertebrate carnivore activity at Duxbury Beach Reservation. Her most notable undergraduate projects were observing how carrion impacted arthropod communities not associated with decomposition, and observing how different species of carrion elicit behavioral changes in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis. Sam’s MS research focuses on how mass mortality events impact insect community function. This research is in collaboration with Brandon Barton, Marcus Lashley, and Heather Jordan at Mississippi State University.