Coffee & Viz - "Make Me Look... and Get Me Excited About Science!”

"Make Me Look . . . and get me excited about science!"

Graphics, images and figures — visual representations of scientific data and concepts — are critical components of science and engineering research. They communicate in ways that words cannot. They can clarify or strengthen an argument and spur interest into the research process.

But it is important to remember that a visual representation of a scientific concept or data is a re-presentation and not the thing itself –– some interpretation or translation is always involved. And just as in writing a journal article, one must carefully plan a figure or photograph; to decide what to say, and in what order to say it.  The process requires clear thinking and the ability to communicate.

Communication, however, is a two-way enterprise. The viewer must first choose to look. This talk will include examples Frankel's own attempts in creating various representations;  some more successful than others. She will discuss the iterative process of getting from "here" to "there," in order to create representations that are more than good enough.

Felice Frankel is a research scientist and photographer in the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has published a book on Visual Strategies: A Practical Guide to Graphics for Scientists and Engineers and taught the MITx online course, Making Science and Engineering Pictures: A Practical Guide to Presenting Your Work.