Heather Mattila

Heather Mattila is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Wellesley College and has been a member of the Wellesley faculty since January 2009.  She received her B.Sc. in Zoology at the University of Guelph in 1998 and, with a Canada Graduate Scholarship, she completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Biology at the University of Guelph in 2005.  She held a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship, with Thomas Seeley, in Cornell University’s Department of Neurobiology and Behavior from 2005 to 2008.

Professor Mattila teaches Introductory Organismal Biology and Animal Behavior and offers a seminar in Social Insect Biology. 

Professor Mattila’s research focuses on the role that intracolonial (within-colony) genetic diversity plays in the organization of communication and division of labor in honey bee colonies.  This research addresses basic questions about the selective advantage of the unusual mating system, extreme polyandry, that has evolved in all species of honey bees, but it also helps beekeepers to better understand how they can manage their colonies for productivity.  For these reasons, Professor Mattila presents her research at meetings of the societies of which she is a member (Entomological Society of America, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, International Union for the Study of Social Insects) and to beekeeper associations across North America.

Profile last updated: 8/09