Rita Mehta is an assistant professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. Her research explores morphological, physiological, and behavioral evolution. Mehta focuses on the mechanisms guiding diversification in vertebrate clades whose members have evolved an elongate and limb-reduced (or complete loss) body plan such as snakes, anguilliform fishes, and other eel-like vertebrates.

Rita obtained a Bachelors degree from U.C. Berkeley and a Ph.D from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She was a postdoctoral researcher at U.C. Davis from 2006-2009. She's received honors, awards and grants from the National Science Foundation, the Division of Comparative Biomechanics of the Society for the Study of Integrative and Comparative Biology, and the Association for the Study of American University Women.