Team

Isabel Dalton

Master's student, incoming January 2026

My research interests include how the plant-pollinator relationships affect hybridization of plants. Additionally, I aim to make science more inclusive, particularly for latinx/hispanic and indigenous communities. Though I am originally from New Mexico, I completed my bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in environmental science at Berea College in Kentucky. While completing my undergraduate degree, I gained research experience with multiple different kinds of organisms but nothing captured my heart like plants and pollinators. As NSF-REU intern at the Chicago Botanic Garden, I studied the floral visitors of the Castilleja pilosa species complex as a possible driver of speciation across its large geographic range. While I was an intern for Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), I studied the change in floral preferences of bumble bees over the course of the season. After I graduated from Berea, I returned to INHS as a pollinator ecology field technician, to continue the work I started during my internship. Expanding on the metabarcoding bumble bee corbicular pollen samples, we analyzed the protein content of pollen to better understand the nutritional factors underlying floral preferences of bumble bees. When not doing research, I love photography, traveling, hiking, backpacking, scuba diving, dancing, and playing video games. 

By the way my name is pronounced "ee-sah-bvell" or you can call me Isa (pronounced "EEsah")