Mariana Bonfim: Research and Teaching as Connecting Bridges Between People and Nature
Mariana Bonfim, a PhD candidate in Biology at Temple University and Research Assistant with the recently established Temple Ambler Field Station, has been thinking a lot lately about relationships. But not in the way you might think. “Nature has a lot of different patterns, but why is an organism exactly the way it is? Why do sea anemones, for example, attach to hermit crabs? What is that relationship bringing to each of them?” asked Bonfim, 29, who arrived at Temple and Field Station Director Dr. Amy Freenstone’s Freestone Lab in 2015 having already amassed years of diverse research and teaching experience in Brazil.