sunshine gao | College of Biological Sciences

sunshine gao

sunshine gao is a cartoonist based in the Twin Cities. they bring a background in and fascination with both art and science to their work, and will lean into these overlapping interests during their residency. sunshine writes:

Over the course of a year, I hope to patiently explore Cedar Creek and CBS Conservatory as natural reserve/biodiversity sites as well as centers of scientific research and human aspiration. These explorations will serve as material for a 40-60 page comic book exploring the space and connections between researchers, their day-to-day work, their research projects, and the different ecosystems they study.

I'm fascinated by the connections between animals and plants and soil and water. I'm in awe of the way interactions between tiny bacteria and fungi can have tangible and massive effects on ecosystems. And I deeply admire the work it takes to make these things legible--patiently counting up species frequency at a survey site, spending hours in a lab crunching data and working out models. Science isn't all beautiful vistas and keen insights; often, it's just patient efforts and dull workdays. But I think that is grander and more interesting than any dream version. Perhaps that's what I'd like to show--that, if you look at the actual humanity underneath it, science is so much smaller and so much more approachable and so much more romantic and expansive than usually conceived.

You can follow sunshine's work on their website (https://www.sunshine-gao.com/) and instagram (@sunshine.gaoh), as well as here on this page.