Welcoming our New Faculty

In 2024, we welcomed five new Assistant Professors to our department, each bringing new research and teaching specialities with them. 

Dr. Robert Boria joins us from a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University, after a PhD at the City College of New York and the American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Boria's research focuses on the ecology and evolution of small mammals in response to climate change. At SFSU his lab will also examine how patterns of urbanization have affected distributions of mammals in the Bay Area. Dr. Boria teaches Mammology and other classes in our EECB BS concentration and IB Masters program.

Dr. Mitzy Porras brings her research in global change ecology to the Department from Penn State University, where she completed her PhD and postdoctoral training. Her research focuses on the impact of global climate change, land-use change and microbial diversity on plant-pollinator interactions. Dr. Porras teaches Entomology, Animal Behavior and other classes in our EECB BS concentration and IB Masters program.

Dr. Jenna Ekwealor comes back to SF State Bio from just across the Bay at UC Berkeley, where she completed her PhD, which was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian. Her research is focused on how mosses, non-vascular plants, adapt to life on land. Dr. Ekwealor teaches Plant Ecology, Biometry and Data Science classes in our undergraduate EECB concentration and in the IB concentration of our MS degrees.

Dr. Jadelys Tonos also joins us from a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley, and before that a PhD at Rice University in Texas. Dr. Tonos' research focuses on tropical ecology of frugivores, studying seed dispersal mechanisms in Madagascar lemurs. Dr. Tonos teaches Biometry and other classes in our EECB division.

Dr. Nicholas Silva comes to us from a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF right here in San Francisco, preceded by a PhD at the University of Michigan. Dr. Silva's research examines role of non-neuronal cells, collectively called glia, in development and disease states of the brain. Dr. Silva teaches Cell Biology in his first semester, and will teach other classes in the CMB concentration and MS programs in future.

Our department extends a warm welcome to these outstanding early-career scientists!