Stavi started volunteering with PTI in Fall 2022 and has taught and tutored biology courses at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility and East Jersey State Prison. Stavi is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, working with Dr. Bridgett vonHoldt. Her research focuses on how epigenetic mechanisms (chemical changes to DNA) regulate phenotypes in nature. She uses longitudinal DNA samples from a variety of wild mammal species, including yellow bellied marmots, northern elephant seals, and black-footed ferrets, to investigate how these molecular mechanisms can help species respond to different environmental conditions, particularly under climate change. She is a field ecologist and spends several months of the year living and working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in western Colorado. There, she collects blood samples from wild marmots to study how epigenetics, hibernation timing, and biological aging are changing under the increased drought and warming trends seen in that region. Beyond her work with PTI, Stavi is passionate about improving safety in field research at Princeton and beyond and has worked closely with University Health Services and the Tigerwell Initiative at Princeton over the last year to fund programming that supports field researchers working in remote off-campus locations. Stavi hopes to make the process of scientific discovery and the joy of understanding the natural world accessible to all students.