Peter J. Auger, Ph.D.

I am a Senior Research Scientist and Operations Manager at the Center for Urban Resilience (CURes) at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA. My background is in field biology, ethology, and urban ecology, and I teach courses in those disciplines at LMU. I am currently leading a team of undergraduate researchers at our CURes Animal Behavior Lab, and one of the extraordinary animals we are studying is hummingbirds. I also conduct active wildlife research projects throughout New England, Southern California and Costa Rica and am delighted to be part of this research team studying torpor in hummingbirds. How animals like hummingbirds conserve energy could be directly transferred to many complex challenges, including figuring out how astronauts will be able to travel great distances in space. Torpor in hummingbirds could potentially be used as a way to put humans into a "temporary hibernation" to slow down their body processes during their long space journey to say ... Mars, Jupiter, or beyond!!

October 2016