Camila Filgueiras, Ph.D.

Research

The goal of my research is to understand how insects and invertebrates interact with their environment and how to use that information to sustainably manage pests. My current research focuses on understanding soil biodiversity, insect-plant-microbe interactions below ground, and on biological control of insect pests using entomopathogens. To do so, I use a combination of field work, lab behavioral assays, and chemical ecology techniques to explore natural and agroecosystems. My current focus is on developing new technologies to support scaling research in these areas. This includes the development and use of the Smart Soil Organism Detector to understand soil organisms using AI, working with the California All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory to understand the full scope of California soil biodiversity, using AI image recognition to quantify insect biodiversity in the Appalachians, and exploring better ways to work with and use entomopathogenic nematodes for controlling insect pests.

I started as a Faculty Fellow for Diversity in 2021 and am excited to incorporate UNCA’s core values of diversity and inclusion into my teaching, research, and service work in the department and at UNCA.

I did my undergraduate work in Agricultural Engineering at the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) in Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil, my M.S. work in the Amazon at the Federal University of the Rural Amazon (UFRA) in Belém, Pará, Brazil, and my PhD work in Agronomy and Entomology at the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) in Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil. I have been a visiting scholar at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and at the University of Florida. Most recently, I was research faculty at Cornell University.  I was a visiting professor at the Federal University of Lavras in Brazil.

More information can be found at nemalab.org.

Education

• Ph.D. in Agronomy and Entomology from Federal University of Lavras (UFLA)
• M.S. in Agronomy from the Federal University of the Rural Amazon (UFRA)
• B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from Federal University of Lavras (UFLA)

Courses Taught

• BIOL 135 Concepts in Ecology and Evolution
• BIOL 134 Experimental Design, Analysis and Presentation
• BIOL 210 Principles of Zoology
• BIOL 210L Principles of Zoology Lab
• BIOL 298 Introduction to Research Methods
• BIOL 331 Entomology
• BIOL 331L Entomology Lab