{"id":34,"date":"2013-02-22T12:53:33","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T20:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2025-10-01T14:28:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T21:28:39","slug":"sharlene-santana","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/team\/sharlene-santana\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharlene Santana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"769\" src=\"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSCN0651g-2-1024x769.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3456\" srcset=\"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSCN0651g-2-1024x769.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSCN0651g-2-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSCN0651g-2-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSCN0651g-2-1536x1153.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSCN0651g-2.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>I live at the intersection of scientific disciplines, races, cultures, and nationalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Growing up in Venezuela, a diverse country in many dimensions, spurred my curiosity for the natural world. This led me to pursue a career as an evolutionary biologist and to focus my research on understanding the mechanisms that underlie diversity in form, function, ecology, and number of species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To understand the processes that lead to phenotypic and lineage diversification, I integrate studies of morphology, function, behavior, and ecology (= ecomorphology) within an evolutionary context. My work is largely focused on bats, because they are one of the most ecologically and morphologically diverse lineages of mammals and thus offer a natural experiment to investigate patterns and mechanisms of diversification. In my research, I apply comparative, integrative and interdisciplinary approaches, involving data collection in the field from free-ranging animals, along with modern lab techniques and quantitative tools. By doing this work in a broad evolutionary context, my research is able to test hypotheses about adaptation and drivers of diversification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More about me: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sharlene_Santana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wikipedia page<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Early-career researchers: an interview with Sharlene Santana (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/jeb.biologists.org\/content\/222\/17\/jeb210815\" target=\"_blank\">Early-career researchers: an interview with Sharlene Santana<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.peoplebehindthescience.com\/dr-sharlene-santana\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dr. Sharlene Santana: Determining the Drivers of Diversity in Bats and Other Mammals<\/a> (podcast)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Contact:\u00a0<\/strong>ssantana&#8221;at&#8221;uw&#8221;dot&#8221;edu; bsky:\u00a0@sesantana.bsky.social<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Education, academic positions and affiliations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2024-present: Walker Endowed Professor of Natural History, Department of Biology, University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2021-present: Professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2012-present:&nbsp;Curator of Mammals, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2019-2021: Fulbright Scholar, Costa Rica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2017-2021: Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2012-2017: Assistant Professor, Department of Biology,&nbsp;&nbsp;University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2011\u20132013: Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching Scholar <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2010-2012: Postdoctoral Fellow. Institute for Society and Genetics. University of California Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2005-2010: Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. University of&nbsp;Massachusetts Amherst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2004: Licenciatura en Biolog\u00eda. Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I live at the intersection of scientific disciplines, races, cultures, and nationalities. Growing up in Venezuela, a diverse country in many dimensions, spurred my curiosity for the natural world. This led me to pursue a career as an evolutionary biologist and to focus my research on understanding the mechanisms that underlie diversity in form, function, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":11,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":93,"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3758,"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/3758"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ssantana\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}