February, 2026: The Carter-Fenk group was just awarded a Pittsburgh Quantum Institute Community Collaboration Award for the proposal, A Phylogenetic Quantum Leap in Understanding the Magnetic Compass of Migratory Lepidoptera! We will be working with Prof. Nathan Clark's lab to identify evolutionarily conserved amino acids in the cryptochrome 1 protein of migratory Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). We will use this information to build various quantum mechanical models of cryptochrome 1 to simulate the origins of the incredible magnetic sense used by butterflies and moths to make spectacular migrations.