Senior Success: Biology Major Chloe Jelley is an Entomologist-in-the-Making
As a kid growing up in Omaha, Neb., Chloe Jelley ’20 had a major aversion to insects that many can relate with.
“I was one of the more careful kids and I was not into bugs at all when I was young … actually, I was really afraid of all bugs,” recalled Jelley.
That didn’t really change much by the time her family relocated to Nutley, N.J., her eighth-grade year, or even by the time she arrived at NJIT with an athletics scholarship in cross-country and early aspirations as a pre-med first-year student. But fast-forward to where she’s at now — a biology undergrad at NJIT heading toward Commencement 2020 — and it’s safe to say she is on the fast track to making a life dedicated to them.
Her plans spun around at the start of her sophomore year when Jelley, an Albert Dorman Honor’s College student, began working as an unlikely understudy to evolutionary biologist and ant expert Phil Barden at NJIT’s Department of Biological Sciences.
“A lot of my life, I was interested in history and wanted to work in a museum,” said Jelley. “At NJIT, I began looking for lab experience and learned about an opportunity with Dr. Barden studying ant fossil collections from his fieldwork. I had so much fun seeing how these small creatures would come to life when you put them under the scope. … You can see all these drastically different body features that each genus seems to have.
“I was able to come up with my own independent project in his lab, and from there I was basically hooked.”
Since then, she’s been investigating both living and extinct prehistoric ant species from around the world, applying various lab techniques to closely study and compare different sensory systems in ants. In doing so, she’s had plenty to do outside the classroom the past few years, including experiencing life as a globetrotting academic explorer.
“I was basically learning how to carry out a scientific investigation from beginning to end, coming up with a methodology, doing data collection and analyzing it, and then even presenting that data to an audience. … I had no knowledge such opportunities existed when I first came to NJIT, but they turned out to be life-changing experiences for me.”
She’s had her research showcased on the national stage during her trip to St. Louis at the 2019 Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, where she won an undergraduate President’s Prize for her first-ever formal presentation on the comparative morphology of ant eyes.
Back at NJIT, her work through her NJIT Provost Summer Research Fellowship and the Ronald E. McNair Scholars program was also highlighted at the NJIT Undergraduate Research Symposium last year.
Meanwhile, outside the lab, she was breaking records as a captain for NJIT’s women’s D1 track team.
Even still, she says the highlight of highlights is her expedition this past year to Madagascar’s dry forest of Ankarafantsika National Park in the Northwest of the country, where she camped out and spent a month to help conduct one of the area’s first samplings of leafy-dwelling ants that dominate the expansive forest canopy.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, Albert Dorman Honors College and the Barden Lab, Jelley joined other young entomologists from around the world for The Ants and Canopy Bootcamp, run by Brian Fisher of the California Academy of Sciences and Bonnie Blaimer of North Carolina State University.
“We were there to be trained as the next generation of myrmecologists in canopy sampling techniques,” said Jelley. “We spent a week climbing trees and sampling the canopy for ants, and by the end of the month we were processing specimens at the Madagascar Biodiversity Center located in the capital city of Antananarivo. It was my first experience in the field and I learned so many skills. … The whole thing had a really cool discovery feeling to it that I’ll never forget.”
When she returned to NJIT this semester, Jelley began adding more paper to her resume, literally. She soon hopes to be the first-author of a forthcoming academic paper detailing the findings from her study of the evolution of ant eyes.
“I’m hoping to publish data I collected for a comparison of 60 living genera from around the world such as Ghana, Guyana and Australia,” explained Jelley. “What we are highlighting overall is that the microhabitat in which a genus is foraging in has a very strong influence on the variation of their eye.”
So, what’s next? Cornell University, where she was recently accepted into the university’s Ph.D. entomology program with Cornell fellowship funding to continue researching the evolution and ecology of ants.
“The Madagascar trip really solidified that I wanted to pursue a career researching ants and got me applying to schools for it,” said Jelley. “I think the research I’ve done at NJIT is the thing I’ll think most about looking back at my time as an undergrad. Between that, the incredible faculty and bonds I formed in cross-country, I‘ll always look back at my time at NJIT fondly.”
