It’s late summer here in Seattle and it may as well be dissertation defense season. We’ve had a flurry of great defenses over these last couple weeks, and a few more to look forward to just over the horizon. The most recent graduate of UW Biology’s PhD Program – and one final acolyte of the Daniels Lab – Dr. Jorge Bustamante successfully defended August 12, 2021 to a Zoom room packed screen-to-screen with friends, family, and mentors. With a background in mechanical engineering and driving interest in entomology Jorge’s research focused on dissecting the biomechanical aspects of insect flight. Jorge discovered both in simulation and experiment that entomological aeronautics wasn’t just “all about the wings”. Instead, Dr. Bustamante – taking some inspiration from study of terrestrial locomotion and its emphasis on changes in body configuration – underscored the contribution of body actuation in the control and efficiency in insect flight. Shedding some light on the diverse and bizarre array of body plans in flying insects, where characteristics tied to abdomen flexibility and size were found to be particularly impactful. It is, as it turns out not “all in the wings”, but “all in the hips”. Or as is the case for these insects, the abdomen!
