Hi all!
I am a graduate student in an evolution, ecology, and behavior program at the University of Texas in Austin, and I am generally interested in microbiota that are associated with subsocial and social spiders. However, until I started graduate school, I was deathly afraid of most spiders (and I even believed that we eat a bunch of them in our sleep…oy). Therefore, I started this website with the Spider World blog in order to learn the truth about spiders, to document my adventure into the world of spiders (and other arachnids), and to inform others about the diversity and necessity of spiders in ecosystems around the world. In addition, I hope to help the public understand that spiders are not terrible creatures that are out to get humans, and in fact, they are beautiful, interesting, and highly misunderstood.
The four things that I love most about graduate school are 1) getting to roam around in nature and call it work, 2) getting to learn about AND teach my favorite subjects, 3) getting to travel to new, sometimes remote locations, and 4) getting to stare at cool arthropods under a microscope for hours on end. So, if any of these are interests of yours, as well, I think that we will get along just fine…
Anyway, hope you enjoy the site! I welcome any/all feedback 🙂
-Emma Dietrich
