Isabelle Betancourt is an entomologist, photographer, and storyteller. She serves as the Invertebrate Collections Manager for the National Science Foundation's National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Biorepository at ASU. Her interests lie in protecting collections, supporting researchers and students in working with insect research collections, exploring insect biodiversity, macrophotography, and public science communication.
NEON is a continental-scale observation facility operated by Battelle and designed to collect long-term open access ecological data to better understand how U.S. ecosystems are changing. The comprehensive data, spatial extent, and remote sensing technology provided by NEON will enable a large and diverse user community to tackle new questions at scales not accessible to previous generations of ecologists. NEON collects environmental data and archival samples that characterize plant, animals, soil, nutrients, freshwater and atmosphere from 81 field sites strategically located in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems across the U.S. Archival samples are housed at the NEON Biorepository at ASU, located approximately 2 miles southwest of the main ASU Tempe campus. Isa manages NEON mosquito, ground beetle, zooplankton, aquatic macroinvertebrate, and pitfall trap invertebrate bycatch collections.
Please reach out if you are interested in working with the samples or data!
Search for samples in the NEON Biorepository Data Portal: https://biorepo.neonscience.org/portal/collections/index.php
Learn more about the ASU Natural History Collections: https://biokic.asu.edu/collections