Profile
A Hunter alum, she earlier held a position as the assistant director of exhibition education at the American Museum of Natural History, designing educational programming for museum visitors on human evolution, genetics and neuroscience. She enjoys working inside and outside of academia to communicate to broad audiences about biology and evolution, and remains a research associate at the museum.
She is also a resource faculty member at the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology and the New York University Skeletal Biology Masters Program.
At Hunter, Zichello teaches introductory courses for non-majors and advanced courses for Human Biology majors, including Human Evolution lecture and lab (ANTHP 101), Human Evolutionary Genetics (ANTHP 302/793), and Science Communication for Human Biologists (ANTHP 40106).
“Teaching at Hunter College is inspiring for me,” she said. “I was a Hunter student once, too, so I am thrilled to be able to facilitate the growth of new ideas and perspectives for Hunter students in anthropology, evolution and beyond.”
As a researcher, Zichello is interested in evolution education, science writing, and research exploring how genetics and morphology evolve in populations.
“One central question that guides my research is: How does variation between individuals of the same species arise and change over time?” she said. “I have worked on two vertebrate systems including primates and birds.
She is proud to have had her dissertation results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018. Her recent research on starlings was published in Scientific Reports in 2024.