He studies speciation and biodiversity of shark, ray, and skate species (subclass Elasmobranchii) through morphological and molecular systematics.
[1] White received bachelor's (1997) and doctoral (2003) degrees in Biological Science from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.
His doctoral thesis, "Aspects of the biology of elasmobranchs in a subtropical embayment in Western Australia and of chondrichthyan fisheries in Indonesia", examined 1) spatial partitioning of food resources available to shark, ray, and skate species in Shark Bay (off the western coast of Australia), and 2) the relative frequencies of shark, ray, and skate species caught in fisheries off the coast of southeastern Indonesia.
Since 2006, White has served as ichthyologist at the Australian National Fish Collection which is part of the CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research facility in Hobart, the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.
[5] Another stated area of research interest is fishery management of developing countries, particularly in Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian archipelago.