School of Humanities and Sciences
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Rodrigo Bello Carvalho
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2023
BioI am a field biologist deeply passionate about wildlife ecology and conservation. My academic and professional journey bridges research, fieldwork, and environmental stewardship across some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems.
My work focuses on understanding the functional role of megafauna (large-bodied vertebrates) in shaping tropical ecosystems through processes such as frugivory, herbivory, and seed dispersal. I am particularly interested in how savanna biodiversity, structure, and functioning respond to the loss of megafauna (defaunation), and how ecological insights can inform restoration and conservation strategies in a rapidly changing world.
I hold a Master’s degree in Biodiversity Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford (2021), and graduated with honors in Biological Sciences (B.Sc., 2017) and Biology Teaching (B.Ed., 2018) from the University of Brasília (UnB). My ecological journey began at UnB’s Ecosystem Ecology Lab (2014–2018) under Prof. Mercedes Bustamante, where I first engaged with Cerrado ecology and savanna dynamics.
Driven by a commitment to applied conservation, I worked at the Brasília Zoological Garden Foundation (2018) and taught Science and Biology in Brasília’s private schools (2019), experiences that deepened my belief in connecting ecological science and conservation with communities.
At Oxford’s Ecosystems Lab (2020–2021), I studied defaunation and seed dispersal in the Cerrado, working under Dr. Imma Oliveras and Prof. Yadvinder Malhi. I later joined Brazil’s national environmental agency (ICMBio) as an Environmental Analyst and Park Ranger (2022–2023), where I was based in the Western Brazilian Amazon, engaging in biodiversity monitoring, sustainable management of natural resources, and frontline conservation enforcement of three Conservation Units within the Purus River Basin.
Currently, I am pursuing a PhD in Biology at Stanford University in the Dirzo Lab, where my research explores megafauna-ecosystem interactions across Brazilian and African savannas, with a focus on how defaunation reshapes ecosystems. I also collaborate with UNESP’s Bird Ecology Lab on frugivory, seed dispersal, and ecological restoration in the Atlantic Forest. -
Aaron Breidenbach
Ph.D. Student in Physics, admitted Autumn 2019
BioHello!
In my physics PhD at Stanford, I grew crystals of Zn-Barlowite. These crystals are strong candidates to be a new state of magnetic matter called a “quantum spin liquid”. Much of my thesis work was dedicated to proving that these materials have novel quantum magnetic properties through neutron scattering. This work resulted in a nature physics paper that is currently generating a lot of buzz within my subfield of condensed matter physics (https://arxiv.org/html/2504.06491v1).
This novel state of matter is interesting to us because it is a strong candidate to store memory in future large-scale quantum computers. I did some calculations, and I think that it takes roughly 10^19 bits of information to faithfully represent the intricate internal quantum magnetic state. For comparison, the human brain encodes about 10^16 bits of information.
What’s most fascinating to me about these quantum spin liquid crystals is that they also grow in nature. I will emphasize that this is absolutely anomalous for a material with such unique quantum properties. The vast majority of materials grown by my colleagues at Stanford are specifically engineered by any means necessary to have exotic quantum properties like high temperature superconductivity. My materials are arguably among the most exotic grown at Stanford, and yet they grow naturally all over the world.
Unfortunately, these crystals are currently found in waste tailings of copper mines in the Atacama desert, a cruel irony of over-extraction. My main project now is to study natural specimen and to help improve desert conditions from both an anthropological and geological perspective. Water rights remain a key issue in the Atacama, and unfortunately, mining practices have greatly elevated local arsenic levels, among other concerns. My dream is that in helping to clean up the desert that I can learn something about the future of quantum computing.
I don't update this profile very much. Please see my linked website to follow my work!
