Isabella Weiler

I am interested in why certain individuals get sicker than others. Maybe you’ve seen it before: your parents both get sick, but only your dad can’t get out of bed? The flu infects your family and you have an awful fever, but your brother or sister don’t feel a thing? I measure immune responses to diseases to try to understand why individuals vary in their ability to resist infection. Specifically, I study this phenomenon in Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands. I get to travel, work outside, and hone my lab skills to investigate why individuals in the finch radiation are better or worse at fighting off viruses!