Dr. Valentina Di Santo
Assistant Professor of Marine Animal Physiology
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Valentina is a fish ecophysiologist and biomechanist. She was born in La Spezia, a town by the sea in Italy. She studied Natural Sciences and Conservation Biology at the University of Firenze in Italy. Her love for fishes brought her to the University of West Florida where she studied the effect of temperature on digestion rates and efficiency in stingrays and sharks. She then moved to Boston University to study in the Marine Program for her PhD, where she quantified the effects of ocean acidification and warming on little skate development, energetics and escape performance. At Boston University she also studied the effect of body size on thermal sensitivity in cleaner gobies from Florida and Belize. During that time, she conducted field work and taught several classes in the Marine Semester in Belize. After completing her PhD, she worked in George Lauder's Lab at Harvard University as a Postdoctoral Fellow, where she focused her research on biomechanics of fish locomotion. At Scripps Institution of Oceanography, she combines eco-physiology and biomechanics tools to understand how fishes adjust their locomotor behavior when challenged by abiotic factors, such as temperature, pH, oxygen, and flow. Outside the lab, Valentina enjoys music and surfing.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr. Theodora Po
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Po is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, studying how animals coordinate movement across environmental boundaries, particularly during the transition from water to land. Her current research focuses on fishes, using high-speed kinematic analysis and respirometry to investigate the biomechanics and physiology of locomotion under various developmental and experimental conditions.
She completed her PhD at the University of California, Irvine, where she investigated how sea stars control the coordinated movement of hundreds of tube feet using a rudimentary nervous system. This work combined animal experiments, robotics, and mathematical modeling to explore locomotion in systems that blend collective and centralized control, offering insight into how decentralized neural architectures can support locomotion in diverse terrains. In both fishes and echinoderms, she is broadly interested in how different control strategies and body plans shape locomotor performance. In the long term, she aims to build an interdisciplinary research lab that bridges biology and robotics to uncover the principles that govern movement in complex and transitional environments.
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Dr. Yuchen Gong
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Yuchen Gong earned his Master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a PhD from the University of Virginia, specializing in biomechanics and computational fluid dynamics. His doctoral research focused on the aerodynamic analysis of flying snake gliding, using reconstructed snake models and advanced computational techniques to investigate the unique fluid dynamics of undulatory gliding. Currently, he studies fish locomotion and fluid interactions, exploring how hydrodynamics influence aquatic propulsion and maneuverability. His work integrates computational modeling and experimental analysis to deepen our understanding of biological swimming strategies. Beyond research, Yuchen enjoys hiking, cooking, badminton, and board games with friends.
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Website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yuchen-Gong
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Graduate Students
Lara Varchetta
PhD Student
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Lara was born in Pietrasanta, Tuscany, and grew up in a small village in northern Italy surrounded by nature, where a passion for the natural world first developed. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Science from the University of Milan, Lara pursued a Master’s degree in Marine Biology at Stockholm University, with a thesis on frogfish walking and swimming biomechanics in the Di Santo Lab. Lara is now beginning a PhD focusing on the schooling behavior of fishes. Outside of research, interests include swimming, hiking, and long conversations with friends.
Shoval Pond
BS/MS Student
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Shoval is pursuing a Master’s in Marine Biology at the University of California, San Diego, where she also completed her BS. Her research in the Di Santo Lab focuses on shark biomechanics, with a particular interest in gait transitions in walking fish. Outside the lab, she enjoys tide pooling and hiking.
Aniela Anuszczyk
BS/MS Student
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Aniela is a Master’s student in the Di Santo Lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Her research focuses on how ocean acidification affects the biomechanics of schooling fishes. Originally from Northern California, she spent summers camping along the coast and exploring tidepools, experiences that inspired her passion for marine life. In her free time, she enjoys scuba diving, camping, and reading.
Undergraduate Students and Volunteers
Justine Vuong
BS Student
Summer URS Philip and Elizabeth Hiestand Scholarship
​Justine is pursuing a BS in Marine Biology with a minor in Economics, with plans to pursue a career in fisheries biology. Her research interests are in fish physiology, and in the Di Santo Lab she contributes to projects on schooling and walking fishes. If she had to pick a favorite fish, it would be the tuna — because they look cool.
Angel Tellechea
BS Student
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Angel grew up in the Bay Area, near Davis and San Francisco. He is pursuing a BS in Marine Biology and is broadly interested in the energetics, ecology, and biology of cnidarians and their responses to climate change. In the Di Santo Lab, he is working on projects in fish biomechanics.
Visiting Students
Isaac McGreeve BS Student in Physics at Brown University
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Alina Lackey Jane Teranes - Scripps Undergraduate Research Fellowship (JT-SURF) Student​​
Alumni
Postdoctoral Fellows
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Dr. Fidji Berio
Project: Biomechanics of walking and swimming in fishes
Dr. Francesco Masnadi
Project: Sub-lethal effects of natural cyanobacterial blooms on fish: Enzymatic activity and swimming performance in the three-spined stickleback
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Dr. Angela Albi
Project: Swimming performance and dynamics in mixed-size fish schools
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Graduate Students
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Sofia Marketaki MS Student in Marine Biology​​
Project: Role of lateral line in maneuvering through novel complex environments in the Mexican blind cavefish
Chloe Marshall MS Student in Marine Biology​​
Project: Coral branches shape hydrodynamic shelter and locomotor performance in reef fish
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Ylva Johannessen MS Student in Marine Biology​​
Project: Cross-generational acclimation of shoaling behavior to high pCOâ‚‚ in Trinidadian guppy
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Paula Schmitz MS Student in Systematics​​
Project: Walking and swimming kinematics in mudskippers
Camille Morerod MS Student in Marine Biology​​
Project: Swimming dynamics in fish aggregation: From social groups to shoaling and schooling
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Xuewei Qi MS Student in Marine Biology
Project: Biomechanics and energetics of fish hovering; Shoaling dynamics in guppies
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Undergraduate Students
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Thao Vu
Project: Sexual dimorphism in the eyes of dragonfishes
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Lova Schildt
Project: Ontogenetic shifts in swimming performance of a protogynous reef fish
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Matilda Vilmar
Project: Swimming performance of sharks and rays under climate change
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Anna Tran ​​
Project: Effect of progressive hypoxia on activity and metabolic rates of embryonic little skate