DELIA SHELTON
Psychological and Brain Sciences
Summer 2011
Though Delia Shelton calls Texas "home", she grew up in a military family and moved around a lot. Shelton even spent extended time in places as far as Germany, Spain, Ghana, and Costa Rica. After her world travels, Shelton has since found a home for herself in Bloomington, Indiana. Shelton is will be entering her second year in pursuit of her PhD. as a dual major in Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. Shelton received her Bachelor's Degree in 2009 at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas with a major in Animal Behavior and minor in Spanish. Shelton states, "I am interested in the evolution and development of Superorganisms and their emergent properties." Shelton hopes to identify the rules that govern how superorganisms work by conducting studies with mice. Her research interests led her to her current lab at Indiana University. Prior to beginning her PhD. program Shelton conducted many internships. Two of her most enriching experiences were with Rice University AGEP and Indiana University NSF REU. At Rice University, Shelton, developed enrichment pans for indo-Chinese Tigers, paying special attention to their pacing patterns. At Indiana University Shelton worked at the Center for Integrative Study of Animal Behavior and studied the audience affect and employed video-playback technique on fish. Both of these unique experiences have helped Shelton to delve deeper into her passion for understanding the mechanisms that belie animal behavior. Outside of the laboratory Shelton is a member of the Women in Science Program (WISP), she is a mentor to first year Medical students, she is an active participant in the IUB AGEP, and she enjoys Salsa dancing three times a week. In the future, Shelton would like to be a professor at a Research One Institution. She hopes to be at the forefront in making advances in her field, and changing the way people think about science. Shelton has found her inspiration in this quote, "The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living."-Henri Ponicarč