Anna Kudla

Anna Kudla is a PhD candidate in Biology. Her research focuses on insect diversity, which she studies through investigations of development and evolution. Her recent work concentrations on the shape differences among species in the insect Family, Membracidae. The amazing 3D forms they take on to look like plant parts, wasps, caterpillar droppings, among other things arises from a single structure called the pronotum. In most insects, the pronotum is a simple flat plate just behind the head. Prior to Duke, Anna worked as a Teach for America corps member in Tulsa, Oklahoma teaching 9th grade biology. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor’s in biology and a minor in English.