No. 1-  "Artistic Musings of a Disease Ecologist"

A presentation by Nina Sokolov

March 19, 2023

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Nina is a disease ecologist who fell in love with the world of insects when she started to draw them. With a microscope and pen, she began studying pinned specimens from museum collections and becoming familiar with insect anatomy. Nina is a PhD candidate in Biology at UC Berkeley, where she studies bees and their viruses to understand how diseases can be contributing to declines of these important pollinators. She uses her artistic skills to determine the fine-scale differences between species that can closely resemble one another. Additionally, she has begun illustrating native bee coloring books to teach kids about the diversity of bees. In this talk Nina will discuss how she uses art in her science to learn about the species she’s studying, communicate her findings to scientists and to the public, and get people excited about insect conservation. Nina will also be doing a digital drawing demonstrations of a bee, and she’ll answer questions about art, science, and bees while we follow along.