The focus of my PhD research is the construction of a molecular phylogeny of the North American stoneflies, the upper hierarchy of which will use transcriptome data. A chapter of this research, assisted by the Mark Davis laboratory, entails a new Perlesta stonefly species description with morphological and molecular comparison to other Nearctic cogeners. Mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I sequence data are used to propose a Perlesta phylogeny which includes three putatively new species.