The Lawrence Hall of Science
The public science center of the University of California, Berkeley.
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Post-doctoral scholar at UC Berkeley’s Integrative Biology department
A: My name is Signe White, and I use she/her pronouns. I’m a postdoc in the Integrative Biology department at UC Berkeley. I work with Mike Boots, who is the chair of the department and an expert in disease ecology. My background is specifically in disease ecology and evolution.
My overarching research questions relate to host heterogeneity and how diseases respond to heterogeneous host populations. For example, when we think about immunity and immune responses, some individuals in a population are more or less susceptible to a particular disease. My question is: if we have a heterogeneous host population and infect it with a virus, how does the virus respond to all of those different host backgrounds? And how does the host respond in return? So it’s a lot of host–parasite coevolution.
In my day-to-day life, I engage with science through research and mentoring undergraduate students in the lab. I also engage with the public through conversations with friends and family who ask about what I do and why it matters. And I engage with science learning at places like the Lawrence Hall of Science as well.
A: My lab mate Nina had already been involved in Science at Cal and had some connections with people at The Lawrence. She had created coloring book pages about bees as an outreach activity. Eventually she asked if I wanted to join her at an Earth Day event where we hosted a pollinator table. That’s where we met Vincent and Louis of the ‘ottoy Initiative, and we started talking about possible collaborations.
We eventually applied for a Green Initiative Fund grant to study pollinators at three different sites: the pollinator garden outside the Integrative Biology building, Café Ohlone, and University Village in Albany.
We conducted pollinator surveys at each site and did community outreach events. The project culminated in an event at The Lawrence where we surveyed pollinators in the garden and also conducted a nighttime moth survey.
A: Working with Vincent and Louis has been a really meaningful collaboration. We’re currently creating new coloring pages that combine pollinator science with Ohlone cultural knowledge.
Each page will feature a bee, moth, or butterfly along with its host plant. On the reverse side, there will be information about that plant and its cultural significance as food, medicine, or something else.
It’s a great example of two different knowledge systems coming together and sharing information with the public in a fun way.
In terms of research collaborations, I’ve also become more connected with the Lepidoptera community. I took a course at the American Museum of Natural History in Arizona, which helped me connect with researchers and hobbyists who study moths and butterflies.
Some of these people are professional scientists, but many are passionate amateur naturalists who know an incredible amount. That community of researchers, museum scientists, and hobbyists has been really important to my work.
A: Mentoring is a big part of it. Working with students forces me to explain concepts clearly and logically. That process helps both them and me.
Another way I connect science with broader audiences is through natural history embroidery and cross-stitching. I create detailed pieces inspired by birds and insects and donate them to natural history organizations for auctions.
It’s not traditional science outreach, but it’s a way of translating natural history into art. Art can be a really effective bridge for engaging people with science.
A: I actually thought science wasn’t for me either.
I grew up in Kentucky and went to a high school that didn’t have strong science or math education. I didn’t understand how science connected to everyday life.
When I got to Indiana University for undergrad, I realized how fascinating the natural world is. I ended up majoring in anthropology rather than biology because I didn’t have the science background needed to catch up in time to graduate.
Later, I reached out to a professor and asked if she knew of any labs that needed a research technician. She told me she was looking for one, and I worked in her evolutionary genetics lab for two years. That experience was essentially my science education.
Everyone’s path into science is different. Sometimes you find your way through unexpected routes.
A: Education would be valued as a civic good — something everyone shares in and benefits from. Being deeply informed and curious wouldn’t be a niche personality trait — it would be admired, expected, and supported in our larger culture. Science would be more accessible rather than not gatekept. Community science would feel natural and welcoming, and no one would need to mute parts of themselves to participate. Science would matter to daily life, and people would see themselves not as outsiders observing someone else’s research, but as active contributors in understanding and shaping the world we share.
A: My science heroes are Maria Sibylla Merian and Leonardo da Vinci (sorry, I chose two!). These are both people who embodied curiosity as a compass and a calling.
Merian is inspirational because she was fearless in her pursuit of truth (originally through art) long before science was a discipline open to women. She traveled from Europe to Suriname where she documented the life history of many insects. Her illustrations blur the line between empirical observation and magical realism.
Leonardo da Vinci, in his own way, lived as though academic disciplines were never meant to be separated. He treated painting, anatomy, engineering, poetry, and natural history as different expressions of the same desire to understand the world. He could look at something as ordinary as the color of the sky and decide the question was not only worth asking, but worth solving.
Both Merian and da Vinci saw science not just as knowledge but as attention: to detail, to beauty, to how things move and change. They remind me that science becomes most powerful when it is curious, interdisciplinary, creative, and boundary-crossing.
A: I love organizing and cataloging things. Science, especially the kind I do, really scratches that itch. For example, in experimental evolution projects I have to plan experiments that run every weekday for months. It requires careful planning, organization, and attention to detail.
Biology can feel chaotic, so science is a way of trying to impose some structure on that complexity. Even if we can never fully organize the natural world, the pursuit of understanding it is what I enjoy most.