Sheila Colla is a PhD Candidate at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on the ecology and conservation of Eastern North American bumble bee species. During her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, she collaborated with Dr. James Thomson, Dr. Robert Gegear and Michael Otterstatter to study the presence and effects of pathogens in commercially-reared Bombus impatiens and the spillover of these pathogens to wild bumble bees. Currently, she is a graduate student in Dr. Laurence Packer’s lab at York University. Her research projects include quantitatively determining whether B. affinis has declined throughout its native range and how bumble bee species diversity has changed in southern Ontario over the past 30 years. She is also interested in determining habitat associations and requirements for each eastern species, in order to aid future conservation efforts.