My name is Samantha DeRosa and I am a senior at Smithtown High School West. At the Davalos Lab this summer, I hoped to learn more about evolutionary genetics and the bioinformatics processes that are used to study genes. My project looks at the morphological and genetic aspects of mammalian olfaction in order to better understand how these two factors, combined with habitat, impact the adaptation of mammals to their environments. No studies to date have looked at the morphology and genetics of olfaction simultaneously. I am using micro CT scans and the Avizo software to create reconstructions of the mammalian nasal turbinates as well as programs such as RAxML and Notung to create phylogenies from genetic data. To make the process of genetic data organization more efficient, I wrote my own perl script. I feel that my research this summer has greatly prepared me for university level lab work and I look forward to being able to use my newly gained skills.