My name is Sandra R. Schachat. Broadly speaking, I am fascinated by the ways in which evolutionary history either constrains or facilitates ecological adaptations. I study insect evolution on time scales of tens or hundreds of millions of years.

My research combines data taken directly from the insect fossil record with three additional lines of evidence: the morphology of extant insects (particularly wing pattern and wing venation in moths), traces of herbivory left on fossil leaves (particularly from the Permian Period, 299-252 million years ago), and stable isotope data that reflect the composition of the atmosphere in the deep past.

I am currently the Coleman F. Fung Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow in the Department of Geological Sciences at Stanford University, where I recently defended my dissertation. I hold a B.A. in Art History & Archaeology from the University of Maryland and an M.S. in Entomology from Mississippi State University. In 2022, I will begin an appointment in the Entomology Section of the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences at the University of Hawaii as a Schmidt Science Fellow.

The name of this site is an homage to Annette Frances Braun, whose 1914 publication “Evolution of the color pattern in the microlepidopterous genus Lithocolletis” paved the way for my graduate research. The images in the header are from Combinaisons ornementales (ca. 1901) by Maurice Pillard Verneuil, George Auriol, and Alphonse Mucha.

Thank you very much for visiting my website. You can contact me at sschachat@schmidtsciencefellows.org.