Prakrit Jain

I am a fourth-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. Since 2019, I have been working on California native scorpions with Dr. Lauren Esposito's lab at the California Academy of Sciences. Since then, I have collected thousands of scorpion specimens from across the western United States and published the descriptions of three new species from California. I deposit scorpion vouchers in the collections of the California Academy of Sciences.

I am passionate about the conservation of California native scorpions. Two of the new scorpion species I have recently described are highly endangered, and my species descriptions have included detailed conservation information: an approach that I intend to continue using in my current scorpion work.

In addition to scorpions, I am interested in many understudied taxa including other arachnids, myriapods, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, and sea slugs.

I expect to graduate from UC Berkeley this year and continue my studies by beginning a PhD program in the fall.

August 2025