Due to another year of COVID restrictions, the 2021 edition of the Annual Meeting of the Association of Medical Illustrators, originally scheduled to be held in Phoenix, Arizona was held online between July 20 and 28. Once again, University of Toronto Master of Science In Biomedical Communications (MScBMC) students did extremely well at the conference's Salon event.
The Salon is an annual exhibition of medical art created and produced by student and professional members of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI). MScBMC students took home nearly half of all student awards winning 15 of the 36 total student awards given out. First year MScBMC student Shehryar Saharan won Best in Show for his infographic titled "Orangutan–The Most Endangered Great Ape." Saharan describes the piece, created with pencil, Photoshop and Tableau, as "a comprehensive and intuitive information graphic that communicates orangutan biology and behaviour, and the urgent need for further conservation efforts."
Shehryar Saharan won Best in Show in the student category at the 2021 AMI Salon for his infographic Orangutan–The Most Endangered Great Ape. The piece was created in consultation with BMC faculty member Jodie Jenkinson, and content expert Leif Cocks (President, The Orangutan Project).
The other MScBMC student award winning pieces are listed below:
Brittany Cheung’s “Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis”
Jennifer Gu’s “Bioluminescent Mushrooms Mock Nature Cover”
Jennifer Lee’s “Plaque Psoriasis”
Chloe Ma’s “Waipo? – A Story of Alzheimer’s Disease in Grandma and My Family”
Colleen Paris’s “Multiple Sclerosis”
Yu Xiang Ren “Lymphatic Filariasis”
Yu Xiang Ren, Chloe (Xiaoyi) Ma, and Willow Yang’s “Vaccine Chat”
Shehryar Saharan’s “Data Storage in Bacterial DNA”
Ava Schroedl’s “Managing Our Waste“
Martin Shook’s “Critical Contact and the Burden on the Brain”
Su Min Suh’s “Window Chamber Method: A Novel Approach of Cellular Imaging”
Su Min Suh’s “Futuristic Approaches of Skin Bioprinting”
Michelle Wu’s “Bubble Bee”
Linda Wilson-Pauwels, professor emerita and past director of the BScAAM and MScBMC program (1986-2008) was awarded the AMI's Lifetime Achievement Award. This award acknowledges and honours a medical illustrator whose "life, work and accomplishments have significantly contributed to the profession and fellow illustrators." Wilson-Pauwels, winner of the AMI's Brödel Award for Excellence in Education in 2008, was celebrated for her tireless efforts to advance and support the profession which included more than 30 years of volunteerism to the AMI including a year as its president.
After a year as president-elect of the AMI, Nicholas Woolridge now assumes the role of president. Woolridge, an associate professor and past director of the MScBMC program from 2008 to 2019, will serve in his new role as the AMI's President until July of 2022.