Andrea Loya Castillo

About Me

I grew up in California, surrounded by mountains, coastlines, and landscapes that always felt alive and changing. Summers meant dry hillsides and long days at the beach. Wildfires were always part of that environment, sometimes distant, sometimes close enough to turn the sky orange. Those experiences made me aware early on of how quickly landscapes can shift, and how life responds to those changes.

In undergrad, I studied biology and ancient civilizations. I have always been drawn to understanding how the world works, but also how systems, whether ecological or human, change over time. During that time and after graduating, I had the opportunity to explore a range of different environments and questions. I worked at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard with the entomology collection, conducted pismo clam surveys along the Southern California coast, and worked at a genetics company developing assays for disease detection.

What stayed constant through all of this was insects. As an undergraduate, I worked in an apiary caring for honeybees, and later conducted research at the McLaughlin Reserve in Northern California studying how wildfires affect insect populations. Those experiences were what ultimately led me to Harvard, where I worked with Ryan Nett studying how plant molecules influence insect behavior. I found myself consistently drawn back to insects, both because of the questions they allow us to ask and the systems they help us understand.

I am now a PhD student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University in Ben de Bivort's lab, where I study how to quantify insect behavior. My work combines computational methods with ecological data and remote sensing to understand how movement links behavior to environment. I am especially interested in how insects respond to disturbance, such as wildfire or urbanization, and what their behavior can reveal about resilience in changing landscapes. When I’m not working with my tiny bugs, I’m usually outside hiking or running, spending time with friends, or getting lost in a good book.