Bugging Out

Drexel master’s alumna on Fulbright and National Geographic fellowships documents and photographs insect collections in Borneo

By Erica Levi Zelinger

The worksite is off the grid. Electricity is limited. There is no AC. There is no refrigerator. Just two degrees from the equator at low elevation, humidity hovers regularly around 90 percent. And if Isa Betancourt doesn’t process her specimens promptly, they may get stolen.

There’s no security breach or premeditated heist, though — the bug burglary happens right in front of her.

Isa, MS communication ’20, is prepping to process and photograph the insects which she has collected at a field site 9,500 miles from Philadelphia in the red, sparkling swamp waters of Borneo. She takes out the collection vials from the day's catch and pours the dead specimens on the table, and suddenly, they start moving.

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 with the National University in Indonesia on a Fulbright fellowship studying. Once a curatorial assistant of entomology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Isa has been in Indonesia since October 2022 to establish an insect specimen research collection to document the understudied insect biodiversity of the peat swamp forest. She is targeting areas of the forest undergoing restoration and also exploring how orangutans create habitats for other animals through their habitual nest creation.

Isa, a graduate of Cornell University, first traveled to Borneo in 2014 as an orangutan research assistant. While there, she thought, “Gosh, the bugs here are so cool, there’s so little known about them … I felt the drive to come back here.”

She specifically chose Fulbright Indonesia to apply to because she already had connections and knew her way around some of the permitting and bureaucratic challenges she’d face. While Indonesia is the fourth-largest country in the world population-wise, it is disproportionally underrepresented 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 Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship, receiving additional funding from Nat Geo and mentorship from the magazine’s photographers to share her research through digital storytelling.

Isa’s Nat Geo contributions advance her goal of fusing the study of entomology with her communication experience and connecting the public to the data and knowledge she is discovering in the natural environment.

When she’s doing field work, Isa brings along her selfie stick — in part because of the live streaming she often does, but also to get her phone camera closer to the insects she is inspecting. And she doesn’t go anywhere without a little container in case she sees something she wants to catch and photograph later. She often posts her findings or consults on iNaturalist, an online global network of people interested in documenting and sharing their biodiversity observations.

She's even discovered a new favorite insect group in Borneo — the raspy cricket also known as the leaf-rolling cricket, because while keeping it in a container with tissues to photograph it, she noticed that the spunky guy with super long antenna produced and used silk to fasten together leaves — and in this case tissue — to create a nook to safely sleep in during the daytime. This cricket group is the only of its kind to produce silk!

The nearby cell tower runs off solar power, so Isa answers interview questions over voice messages sent via WhatsApp. But she must stop recording for a moment — she’s heard leaves rustling above and thinks there may be an orangutan near camp.

While on the rugged island in Southeast Asia, she’s also logging field notes for Nat Geo’s website.

“What moves into the orangutan nest after the orangutans move out?” she writes, sharing information from the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station in the Mawas Conservation Area in the Kapuas Regency of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Even as the insects chirp and sing in the background of Isa’s recordings, her inquisitive and soulful nature comes through.

“I find the rainy season here to be more magical [than the dry season] because the water table rises … and it feels different and it feels special and the water sparkles and it’s red, which sounds weird, but it’s a clear, pretty red from the tannins from the plants, and when the sun shines through, the reflection lights up the bottom side of leaves in a beautiful, magical way.”

Isa can still recall where her love affair with bugs started: She was four and the summer sun was sinking toward the horizon, and there in the light patches on the back porch of her suburban Philly home with her parents and identical twin sister, there was a butterfly that came to perch. The family named it Flyvie. And for several days, Flyvie would return to visit the girls.

“When I was in college, I learned that this type of butterfly — the red admiral — is very territorial, and the males will guard a sunny patch for territory,” Isa said laughing. “So, while we thought that we were friends with Flyvie, Flyvie was actually angry with us. We were in Flyvie’s sunny patch that afternoon. It wasn’t as amicable of a relationship as we thought.”

Isa, a natural history ambassador and “badass trailblazer,” as one friend refers to her, loves that more than two decades after that memory, she understands the meaning behind that moment.

“The insect world is full of amazing interactions and colors and textures and inspiration,” she says. “There’s a lot we can learn from them: How they have existed on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. Insects pollinate. Insects are important decomposers. they are critical food sources for birds and other animals, they are recyclers, they are sources of inspiration and technology.”

"She’s the published author of Backyard Bugs of Philadelphia, once hosted a weekly livestream at the Academy, and planned a 3-course dinner made from the magicicada septendecim — the 17-year periodical cicada was served with cocktail sauce, smoked over three-cheese grits and covered in chocolate and served with cannoli.

Afraid of insects, you say?

Isa will find one you can appreciate. If you like music or to sing, there are insects that produce funky sounds. If you like shiny things, there are some brilliant and iridescent insects to observe. If you don’t like spiders, maybe you’d like the pirate spider because it eats other spiders. Or Isa’s favorite, the golden tortoise beetle, the zero-waste insect and fastest reversibly color-changing arthropod known to man, which she first came across right in Mantua near the Drexel campus.

“When Isa was doing her campus interview for her Fulbright application, I asked her about her favorite Philadelphia bug,” says Leah Gates, associate director of Undergraduate Research and Enrichment Programs. “Five minutes

One of the many strikingly patterned lichen moths that fly to the hallway lights at the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station (Species: Cyme reticulata) later, the golden tortoise beetle was also my favorite bug. She really has a gift for helping people learn to love something they start out fearing.”

Some people fear bugs, but most insects don't bat a wing about us, Isa says. “They are critical players in our environment. They pollinate, they are food sources for birds and other animals, they are recyclers, they are sources of inspiration and technology, they have been used for medical advancements, they are used for the grout of a mosaic or brick wall ... they hold the natural world together and fill the gaps. They are crucial for maintaining the balance and we need them.”

Isa began working with the Undergraduate Research & Enrichment Programs on her Fulbright application materials back in 2019. She first received the Fulbright for the 20202021 year but had to push her start date back due to COVID.

“It took about two years before I was able to get going, but being connected with National Geographic is such a dream,” Isa says.

Isa grew up in the Philly suburbs with the safe, fuzzy, and native eastern tent caterpillars. It was a surprise to her to learn how incredibly feared fuzzy caterpillars are in this tropical peat swamp forest! They certainly look cute, but can leave intense rashes on the skin of those who are unlucky and brush up against them.

She was matched with Nat Geo mentor Gabby Salazar, a conservation photographer and an environmental social scientist, who supports her and processes ideas for Isa’s project.

Isa was also selected to participate in the magazine’s second assistant program, allowing her to travel with Nat Geo photographer Jaime Rojo on assignment for a butterfly project, helping him set up shoots and allowing her to see the day-to-day business side of things.

“It was great to see all the thought and care and dedication and concentration that he put into his work,” Isa says. “This was a fantastic experience that really filled a lot of gaps for me about how being a photographer works. It was good for thinking about my gear and workflow as I was getting close to leaving for the fellowship.”

Nat Geo flew Isa back in January 2023 to attend a storytelling summit where National Geographic Society staff hosted workshops and select storytellers presented their assignments on the main stage.

Isa's earned the lifetime role of National Geographic Explorer, which provides her access to resources for storytelling, their internal grants database, and the explorer community. While it is not guaranteed that her work will be published in the magazine, at the end of her Fulbright this fall, she’ll have a chance to pitch her work to editors and staff.

Isa walks down the main trail at Camp Tuanan, armed with her bug net, compass, machete (around the waist), and backpack filled with water, snacks, notebook, camera and entomology supplies. The phone leash is one of her favorite gadgets, as it allows her to keep her phone on hand and at the ready wherever she goes so she may quickly snap shots of surprise insects and other animal encounters. You never know what you might encounter in the forest or even while moving about the field station! Follow

Additionally, financial support from an Insect Diversity Association Fund within the Entomology Department at the Academy, allowed Isa to support an Indonesian undergraduate student — M. Hudan Assalam — to work with her in the forest and mentor him as he works on a butterfly bait preference project for his undergraduate degree.

“Isa has really used her Fulbright to have an impact beyond her own research, from her public work to finding funding for Hudan,” Leah says. “She has even been mentoring one of our current Drexel students as he applies for a Fulbright to study orangutans at the same research site.”

She’s picking up a bit of Bahasa Dayak, the local language, as she traipses through the Bornean peat swamp forest. This endangered habitat, with an average peat thickness of about 15 feet, is a critical carbon reservoir.

When she returns from Indonesia, she may apply for graduate school and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. She’s also interested in potentially working for a wildlife organization or finding a job as an entomology collection manager.

“I don’t have a set plan — I’m available for hire!”