Julia Kappeler

From hatching swallowtail butterflies to scooping up tadpoles, Julia’s fascination with the natural world took root early—and unlike most childhood “phases,” this one stuck. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d promptly answer: “a mad scientist.”

Julia earned her undergraduate degree in Biology with a minor in Studio Art at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus, where she discovered that playing with bugs could pay. She joined Dr. Tomislav Terzin’s undergraduate entomology research lab and the Augustana Tree Ring Lab.

Summers were spent knee-deep in fields, identifying crop pests as part of Integrated Pest Management for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). In 2021, an internship at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) brought her back to Europe to study the impact of streetlights on insect populations. In her off-hours, she lit another spark—training and working as a firefighter.

Pursuing a master’s in biology at ETH Zurich allowed Julia to dip her toes (and tweezers) into a wide range of research: from studying human skin volatiles and malaria mosquito behavior in the biocommunications lab, to delving into the distribution and genetics of red-haired pine beetles.

Eventually, she branched out to work with the dazzling—but destructive—emerald ash borer at WSL for her thesis. After graduating in spring 2024, Julia took her love for forests to new heights—literally—by becoming a rappel firefighter in British Columbia. Whether she’s descending into wildfires or diving into a research project, she’s always been one to chase what bugs her curiosity.