Karine Gibbs

Dr. Gibbs (A.B., Harvard University; Ph.D., Stanford University) is an Associate Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has received multiple awards, including the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Dr. Gibbs has mentored several students and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have pursued professional careers in science-related fields both inside and outside of academia. She is a member of the editorial boards of scientific journals and contributes to grant proposal review boards. On and off campus, Dr. Gibbs tries to support her scientific and local communities, including serving on committees focused on improving student educational experiences and their career development opportunities. Outside of the laboratory, Dr. Gibbs enjoys running, biking, and skiing with family and friends.

Karine A. Gibbs studies big, complex behaviors of tiny organisms. She wants to know how bacteria recognize one another, engage in collective behaviors like territory formation, and cause disease. Her team uses approaches from molecular biology, biochemistry, and live-cell imaging to examine shapeshifting, fast-moving residents of humans and animals. The Gibbs research group employs this integrative approach to characterize subcellular processes and cellular development and to visualize and quantify social behaviors. Her research tackles questions such as: how does a sense of identity shape the way bacteria assemble and move as a collective, and in turn, how does this affect growth and survival? Her group’s specific interests include:
• Self versus non-self (kin) recognition in bacteria, cell-to-cell communication, signaling pathways
• Bacterial genetics and cell biology
• Relationships between individual agency and group structures in collective behaviors
• Development of quantitative and statistical methods for image analysis of non-uniform cells and populations