Colorful mural featuring various scenes of nature, animals, and people in an outdoor setting. — This is the first of two newly installed murals located by the UC Davis Arboretum's Plant Nursery that will be celebrated at the grand opening at 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21 during the 15th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. Directing the project: urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, associate professor of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Grand Opening of Mural Project

Meineke-Ullman Project: Two Murals Will be Unveiled Feb. 21

by Kathy Keatley Garvey
February 16, 2026

A group of five people stands around a table covered in colorful items and materials. — These five students were among those working on the latest mural from Emily Meineke's class, ENT 001 "Art, Science and the World of Insects." From left are Alejandro Ochoa
Amelie Aspenwall, Claire Rivera, Kaley Pohl and Jason Zhou.

Two newly installed large-scale murals located behind the UC Davis Arboretum's Plant Nursery on Garrod Drive will be unveiled at a grand opening celebration at 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21 during the 15th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day.

Directing the mural project: urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.

The murals are the work of Meineke's students in her entomology class, ENT 001, "Art, Science and the World of Insects," and her mentor and colleague, UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Diane Ullman, co-founder and director emerita of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.

Some 84 students helped on each of the murals, or 168 in total. A number of volunteers also participated.

"The two murals are the first half of a 4-mural project displaying a cross-section of California’s diversity, spanning from the coast to the Sierras," Meineke says. "The murals being unveiled are of the coast and the Central Valley. They are 15’ by 5’ large format, high-relief pieces, each made by one quarter of ENT 001 students."

Smiling woman with long, straight gray hair, wearing a black turtleneck in a blurred green background. — Urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Meineke's research project, Climate Adaptation Living Lab (CALL), graces the front of the murals, and illustrates how relationships between insects and plants will shift as the climate changes. The plant palette is comprised of low-water, pollinator favorites, including:

Sneezeweed, Helenium puberulum
Mugwort, Artemisia douglasiana
Black sage, Salvia mellifera
Common snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus var. Laevigatus, a UC Davis Arboretum All-Star
Rock phacelia, Phacelia californica

Meineke, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty in 2020, was named a Hellman Fellow in 2022 and an Early Career Fellow, Ecological Society of America in 2023. As a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Herbaria, Meineke studied how urbanization and climate change have affected global plant–insect relationships over the past 100-plus years. She helped spearhead Harvard Museum of Natural History's Thoreau project.

Woman with curly hair wearing a floral shawl, seated against a natural background. — UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita and emerita director of UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.

Ullman, an entomologist, artist and administrator who retired in 2024 after a 29-year career at UC Davis, is a former chair of the Department of Entomology (now Entomology and Nematology) and former associate dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Her many honors include Distinguished Teaching Award from the UC Davis Academic Senate; National Excellence in Teaching Award from the Entomology Society of America (ESA); Fellow of ESA; and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She discusses her teaching, research and administration in the hour-long video published on Aggie Video at https://tinyurl.com/ycynwwub.

As part of her involvement with the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program and her entomology classes fusing art with science, Ullman spearheaded more than 30 large-scale art ceramic-mosaic projects, including:

"Oak Family Tree" on the public restroom at Peter Shields' Oak Grove
"Nature's Gallery" in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden
"A Bird's Eye View," California Raptor Center on Old Davis Road
"The Secret Life of Vineyards" at the Matthiasson Winery on Dry Creek Road, Napa

The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day is a free and family friendly event that will showcase 12 museums or collections across campus. This is an opportunity to "discover, explore and connect" and engage one-on-one with the scientists, said chair Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

For more information, see https://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/ or https://tinyurl.com/y8a9wf2s