Megan McEntyre White

Undergraduate student (URAP)

I am a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in Molecular & Cell Biology with an emphasis in Genetics, Genomics, Evolution & Development and a minor in Data Science. My interest in genetic engineering was sparked while in a high school biotechnology class, and I have since been fascinated by its applications to climate change research. I started out working on using bacteria for biofuel production, then shifted my focus to plants and their responses to altered environmental conditions. Since plants play such a foundational role for example as crops, I believe that studying them in this context is essential to deal with the realities of a changing climate.

After contributing to a project to engineer the crop Sorghum to withstand drought, I became curious to explore from a broader evolutionary perspective the genetic drivers of climate adaptation. I want to learn about identifying causal genetic variants and their mechanisms to better understand how plants have already naturally adapted over time, and how this could inform future efforts to develop plants with increased resilience.