Thomas J. White is a Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center in the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He received a BA in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, including graduate studies in the Pharmacology Department at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

From 1978 to 2011, White held senior executive positions at several biotechnology firms (Cetus Corporation, Roche Molecular Systems and Celera Corporation) where he directed the research and development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for applications in basic research, molecular evolution, forensics and diagnostics. TIn the course of his research career, White has coauthored a hundred publications in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals and coedited five books – including Silent Witness: Forensic DNA Applied to Criminal Investigations and Humanitarian Disasters, published in 2020 by Oxford University Press.