Dia Krylova, ‘24, spends her free time volunteering at the Rensselaer Bird Center, observing birds in her backyard, and hanging out with her parakeets! She fell in love with ornithology in her early high school years and has completed many avian-related projects since, which can be viewed below. Dia hopes to one day become an avian veterinarian or a professor of ornithology, and has a particular curiosity in parakeet genetic mutations which she loves researching about! Dia was inspired to create the Vultures of Emma project after realizing barely anyone on the Emma Willard campus knew who the large birds gliding up above were, and decided to partner with Robyn Wu to educate the community in the form of this amazing website!
Among ornithology, Dia's interests include anatomy, neuroscience, and zoology. If you are interested in learning about she has combined her love for birds with those topics, check out her other projects and presentations below!
More Avian Projects from Dia Krylova
The Winged and The Wild; the next major project that Dia completed during her Junior year!
Dia is continuing her personal genetic research as senior, and is working on a project where she is attempting to prove a new mutation theory that she discovered in one of her parakeets last year. If you want to check her progress: click below!
Robyn W., ‘24, loves developing web sites and other coding projects. He discovered his passion for computer science in middle school, and now knows HTML, CSS, JavaScript (and jQuery), Java, PHP, Python, SQL, and R. Robyn hopes to major in computer science in college and has a particular interest in artificial intelligence and robots. Robyn was inspired to work with Dia on the Vultures of Emma website after hearing about the need for a educational space dedciated to these magnificant birds.
Jon Calos has been an instructor at Emma Willard for over 25 years, both as a biology teacher, a Signature and STEAM project manager, and as the current head of the Experiential Learning Department. He has a MS in Animal Behavior from Illinois State University, and a BS of Zoology from the University of Vermont. His interests in zoology and ornithology made him the perfect manager for the Vultures of Emma STEAM 10 project. He worked closely with Robyn and Dia for the majority of their sophomore year, meeting almost every week to perfect the research presentation and website layout. He has continued to work alongside Dia and Robyn in their individual pursuits and projects.
The vultures on Mount Ida have become quite popular around campus after vulturesofemma.org was launched! They are now pictured next to other popular Emma Willard icons like the jester hat and Sage Tower. They have also managed to get into the faculty-run 2023 Mock Revels as stuffed animals in an offering from the country women to the Lady of the Manor. Both species of vultures are now pointed out by members of the community as they walk from class to class, and they certainly enjoy the attention!
