Bugging Out Drexel master’s alumna on Fulbright and National Geographic fellowships documents and photographs insect collections in Borneo By Erica Levi Zelinger
T
he worksite is off the grid. Electricity is limited.
establish an insect specimen research collection to document
There is no AC. There is no refrigerator. Just
the understudied insect biodiversity of the peat swamp
two degrees from the equator at low elevation,
forest. She is targeting areas of the forest undergoing resto-
humidity hovers regularly around 90 percent. And if Isa
ration and also exploring how orangutans create habitats for
Betancourt doesn’t process her specimens promptly, they
other animals through their habitual nest creation.
may get stolen. There’s no security breach or premeditated heist, though — the bug burglary happens right in front of her.
there, she thought, “Gosh, the bugs here are so cool, there’s so
Isa, MS communication ’20, is prepping to process and
little known about them … I felt the drive to come back here.”
photograph the insects which she has collected at a field
She specifically chose Fulbright Indonesia to apply to
site 9,500 miles from Philadelphia in the red, sparkling
because she already had connections and knew her way
swamp waters of Borneo. She takes out the collection vials
around some of the permitting and bureaucratic challenges
from the day's catch and pours the dead specimens on the
she’d face. While Indonesia is the fourth-largest country in
table, and suddenly, they start moving.
the world population-wise, it is disproportionally underrep-
An ant thief has strutted over, grabbed the stalk-eyed fly (Family: Diopsidae) with her mandibles and trotted away with it. Sometimes the “enemy” is the very thing Isa is working
While hanging on the trunk of a tree in the forest mid-story, Isa focuses her macro lens to photograph an insect on a Komunda vine. Photo by Rumaan Malhotra
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Isa, a graduate of Cornell University, first traveled to Borneo in 2014 as an orangutan research assistant. While
resented at entomology conferences and has a low number of entomology collections, Isa says. Separate from the Fulbright US Student Study grant, her stunning photography skills also garnered her a prestigious
with the National University in Indonesia on a Fulbright
Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship,
fellowship studying. Once a curatorial assistant of
receiving additional funding from Nat Geo and mentorship
entomology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel
from the magazine’s photographers to share her research
University, Isa has been in Indonesia since October 2022 to
through digital storytelling.
Pictured above from left to right: a Five-bar Swordtail (Graphium antiphates); the Emerald Moth (Tanaorhinus rafflesii)
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