2021 BMC speaker series: Savanna Jackson, Senior Service Designer at Bridgeable

Savanna Jackson, MScBMC, Class of 2017. Photo credit: Bridgeable

Biomedical communications and human-centred design:
A perfect marriage to help solve the world’s big healthcare problems

Human-centred design is critical to creating products, services and communications that truly address the needs and abilities of those who use them. Nowhere is this more important than in the world of healthcare and medicine, which touches every human at one time or another.

Fortunately, the skills that prepare us to be effective biomedical communications specialists also equip us to solve human-centred design problems. We apply those skills in both medical illustration and in filling communication gaps in the healthcare world. 

In this talk, Savanna will give students a window into her path from the BMC program to the human-centred design field, explore what it looks like to practice this discipline in the context of biomedical communication, and show how incorporating human-centred design practices into your own work can help you better serve the needs of your audiences and clients.

Date and Time:
February 5, 2021
10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. ET
(One-hour presentation followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer session)

Missed the presentation? View the video recording here: https://vimeo.com/509922130/87b9d934e3

The road less travelled–BMC Speakers Series 2021 full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2021/1/31/the-road-less-travelledbmc-speaker-series-2021

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Savanna Jackson, a senior service designer at award-winning design consultancy Bridgeable, translates complex problems, processes and experiences into clear and actionable opportunities to create better, more human solutions. 

Jackson says that a Master of Science in biomedical communications from the University of Toronto equipped her with the visual design and communication skills to zero-in on the “so what?” From vast amounts of complex data, she builds meaningful narratives and conveys them through communications that both delight audiences and illustrate the optimal way forward. 

Jackson also holds a Bachelor of Science in biology from McGill University and an Ontario College Certificate in design and applied arts from George Brown College. Follow @jacksonsassy on Instagram and Twitter.

Translating complex experiences into human solutions. Image Credits: Bridgeable

BMC student named to top 3 in data visualization competition

8:58 a.m.

Maeve Doyle

Tableau Software named Abeeshan Selvabaskaran one of the top three winners in their inaugural 2020 data visualization competition for students, Iron Viz: Student Edition. Tableau made the announcement January 19.

A first year student in the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto, Selvabaskaran’s winning visualization Mapping Extinction with Climate Change depicts the relationship between human activity and endangered species.

He created the interactive visualization in Tableau, an interactive software toolkit used for data analytics and visualization.

Selvabaskaran’s piece allows the user to interact with the effect of anthropogenic impacts such as climate change and habitat destruction on different classes of animals. Users can also see how those changes have evolved over time.

Interactive data visualization Mapping Extinction with Climate Change created by Abeeshan Selvabaskaran was one the top three winners in Tableau’s inaugural student data vis competition Iron Viz: Student Edition.

The judges described Selvabaskaran’s entry as a beautifully designed visualization. "The dark background in conjunction with the four main colours representing the classes of species, combined with the excellent font selection makes for a really outstanding viewing experience," the judges said. "It had a good use of images to create an artistic and modern looking dashboard layout and background."

Submissions were judged on creativity, analysis, beauty and design, and overall best practices. Winners received Tableau merchandise and a $500 software certification training package.

• See all the winning visualizations from Tableau’s Iron Viz: Student Edition

Abeeshan Selvabaskaran, Year I graduate student in the BMC program

Selvabaskaran says that his goal is to create visuals that educate and inspire. “I try to be as versatile as I can with the tools I use, whether that be through illustration software or interactive visualizations in Tableau.”

• Find more of Selvabaskaran’s work on Instagram and Twitter

Currently, the graduate student is studying anatomy and learning to create anatomical illustrations. He says he looks forward to expanding his knowledge of 3D-modelling methods and technology. "My passion lies in 3D-animation and XR (extended reality) technologies and I can't wait to be part of the future in interactive healthcare education."

Printing skull models for a virtual classroom

12:00 p.m.

Maeve Doyle

Professor Dave Mazierski spent the Christmas 2020 break at home printing 3D-models of bat-eared fox skulls. He made them for each of the nearly 50 undergraduate students attending his scientific drawing class online.

3D-prints of a bat-eared fox skull. Photo credit: D. Mazierski

Mazierski, a vertebrate palaeontologist and associate professor of biomedical communications at the University of Toronto, teaches HSC302 Biocommunication Visualization. Completing an accurate drawing of a skull is one of the course’s exercises.

Normally, a biology technician provides primate skulls for the students to observe and sketch. Mazierski would provide transparent grids through which to observe the models, clips to support the grid, and drawing materials. Rows of drawing stations would be set up in one of the biology department’s laboratories.

“Like a skull-sketching factory,” he says.

Pre-pandemic skull-sketching laboratory. Photo credit: D. Mazierski

But with teaching forced online by the global COVID-19 pandemic, he needed a substitute for this learning experience. There wasn’t a space large enough to accommodate physical distancing. The real primate skulls were too valuable and too fragile to lend.

Mazierski got approval from the director of the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications to borrow the program’s Form2 3D printer. He researched online repositories for 3D data for skulls, and settled on the bat-eared fox.

“It’s got interesting teeth.” He holds up a resin model of the skull. “It’s slightly smaller than life, but it’s large enough that students can see the features we want them to understand and to draw the various elements of the skull. The size and shape was easy to print as a single object and to clean.” He taps the desk with the 3D print. “And they’re durable,” he says.

Mazierski printed the models in his newly-converted 3D-printing studio, formerly his daughter’s bedroom.

“It took 22 hours to print them nine at a time–” the maximum the desktop 3D-printer could produce ”–and another 20 minutes per skull to remove them from the build platform and clean them,” says Mazierski.

Professor Dave Mazierski separates a 3D print of a bat-eared fox skull from the build platform. Photo credit: D. Mazierski

He then faced the problem of getting the skulls to students dispersed by the pandemic. He packed the models into envelopes, along with grids and a stand. He also fabricated the stands himself from pine boards.

Students collected the majority of the envelopes from lockers in the biology department, but some supplies had to be mailed to students attending class from such places as British Columbia, Ireland and Pakistan.

Drawing to learn in science

Laboratory drawings are a standard part of life science studies. In comparative anatomy courses, for example, students are expected to create manuals in which they draw their observations. “In vertebrate palaeontology, you have to be able to draw your specimen to report it for publication,” he says.

Encouraging people to draw is sometimes a way to encourage them to learn in a different way. “While you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, a scientific drawing can’t be vague or ambivalent. If it’s going to be accurate and convey information, all those lines must have meaning,” he says. “The act of drawing forces you to understand.”

BMC prof receives IMS Course Lecturer Award

1:10 p.m.

Michael Corrin, associate professor teaching stream, Biomedical Communications, has been recognized again by the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) at the University of Toronto for excellence in teaching.

Corrin has been named the 2020 recipient of the IMS Course Lecturer Award. The award is presented annually for sustained contribution of three years or more to excellence in lecturing in an IMS graduate course.

Corrin is also the 2017 recipient of the IMS Course Director Award for sustained excellence in the teaching, administration and development of a IMS graduate course.

On behalf of his colleagues and students, past and present, the Biomedical Communications program thanks Professor Corrin for his many contributions and dedication to training highly qualified personnel in science communication.

Class of 2020 joins the BMC family of alumni

8:14 a.m.

The Master of Science in Biomedical Communications welcomes the newest cohort of graduands to their family of BMC alumni today.

The Class of 2020 made final presentations of their Master's Research Projects (MRPs), online and over two evenings, November 18 and 19.

MRPs ranged from 3D animations of public health issues to interactive e-learning for undergraduate education to graphic narratives for patient education.

The final presentations are available to view here: 

November 18: https://youtu.be/-ODSpqU8Xh0
November 19: https://youtu.be/pXXHGnPpD2U

The Class of 2020 convocates Saturday, November 21 at noon. Watch the University of Toronto's Fall Convocation 2020 and Virtual Ceremony here: https://www.utoronto.ca/convocation.

Congratulations to the MScBMC Class of 2020 who graduate in the 75th year of the Biomedical Communications program!

Information design: more than pretty pictures

9:35 a.m.

Maeve Doyle

Year I students in the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications recently created information graphics in partial fulfilment of the course requirements for MSC2023H Information Design.

The graduate students' projects attempt to clarify complex medical or scientific subject matter for a specific target audience.

"Part of the whole process is understanding how to appropriately encode visual variables, and how to make information pop by manipulating pre-attentive features in the design of the graphic," says Jodie Jenkinson, course instructor, associate professor and director of the Biomedical Communications program.

In their first year, Biomedical Communications students are trained in several subjects including information design. They are taught how to create clear information hierarchies in the design of visual displays. This includes the purposeful ordering and integration of graphical elements and text.

Leveraging human visual perception

"One important goal of information design is to attract the attention of the viewer through the manipulation of visual elements. This increases engagement and furthers the impact of the communication,” says Jenkinson. "But more importantly, things that might be difficult to discern in a block of raw data can become crystal clear when you map that data to a graphical representations."

She says that human visual perception is attuned to pattern-finding and comparison. Trends and relationships can often be understood from a properly designed image far more easily than they can from a table of data or a paragraph of text.

The brain’s visual cortex, and the areas that surround it, have evolved to find patterns and make comparisons. “Biomedical communications specialists use information design to engage that uniquely powerful part of the brain.”

Information graphics produced by: Amy Assabgui (Ecosystem Architects), Viktoriya Khymych (On Thin Ice), Naomi Robson (The Plight of the Pangolin), Shay Saharan (The Most Endangered Great Ape–Orangutan), and Aimy Wang (Invaders from Distant Waters).

NSERC funds training in visual education of researchers

11:09 a.m.

Maeve Doyle

NSERC awarded Nicholas Woolridge, associate professor in the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto, a $20,000 grant in its pilot Science Communications Skills competition.

The grant will support Woolridge’s development of a workshop to train STEM students and researchers in the effective communication of science to the public. The workshop will be developed for, and with, principal investigators and their trainees.

Nicholas Woolridge, Associate Director, Master of Science in Biomedical Communications. Photo credit: Maeve Doyle

DiSCOVER–Design in Science Communication: Opportunities in Visual Education for Researchers

Woolridge says that PIs, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are often called upon to communicate scientific concepts. But, they may lack training in the skills they need to effectively communicate that science in visual form, such as data visualizations, imaging, graphs, diagrams, flow charts, and other forms of visual media.

“The primary goal of DiSCOVER is to design a prototype workshop experience to impart audience-aware design methods and skills,” he says. “We mean to create a portable workshop format that can be deployed beyond U of T for researchers and trainees in STEM.”

Design Process

Unique to DiSCOVER is the co-design process, which will involve the stakeholders. "By building a facilitated collaborative phase into the workshop development, we hope to address both the needs of the people we are training, and the needs of the audiences who will be informed by them." The project will partner with Bridgeable Inc., a Toronto design consultancy, on the co-creation training and process.

The benefits of the project are two-fold. "Participants will leave with greater experience in the design of visual media for science communication, but another takeaway will be the design of the workshop itself."

Portable Design

Woolridge will document the activities and exercises so that DiSCOVER can be implemented elsewhere. "It won't just be a one-time activity. If people have a good experience with it, facilitators in other research centres can mount the science communications training again and again, year after year."

Future funding could support work to refine the design for different domains. "The communications needs and objectives of, say, biology might vary between biological disciplines. Similarly, the needs and objectives will vary for different  domains, such as earth sciences or physics or chemistry," says Woolridge. Different approaches may be taken and might evolve through further workshop designs.

Woolridge hopes that the DiSCOVER project can be expanded to provide a menu of choices of workshop activities that can be deployed relevant to the fields of research work to be communicated.

AMI Awards 2020

Each year the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) hosts an exhibition of scientific and medical visualizations created and produced by its professional, associate and student members. Members submit illustrations, animations and interactive media for judging by committees composed of subject matter experts.

Despite the cancellation of the 2020 annual conference caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMI Salon went ahead as a virtual event hosted online.

BMC students, faculty and alumni won five of nine Awards of Excellence, nine of 18 Awards of Merit and two of the most prestigious–Best of Show for Interactive/Dynamic Media and Best of Show for Static Media.

Student Category

Best of Show

Alexander Young, (Interactive Media) Twin-Twin Training Simulator: an interactive 3D surgical tool for teaching fetoscopic laster ablation to treat TTTS; Supervisors Nicholas Woolridge and Michael Corrin

Hang Lin, (Still Media – Editorial) Cyborg Botany; Supervisor Marc Dryer

Awards of Excellence

Alexander Young, (Interactive Media) Twin-Twin Training Simulator: an interactive 3D surgical tool for teaching fetoscopic laster ablation to treat TTTS; Supervisors Nicholas Woolridge and Michael Corrin

Hang Lin, (Still Media – Editorial) Cyborg Botany; Supervisor Marc Dryer

Colleen Paris, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional – Molecular/Biological/Life Sciences) A Guide to Potentially Habitable Exoplanets; Supervisor Jodie Jenkinson

Brittany Cheung, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional – Molecular/Biological/Life Sciences) Emperor Penguins: Breeding Season and Adaptations; Supervisor Jodie Jenkinson

Hang Lin, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional -- Anatomical/Pathological) Acquired Ocular Toxoplasmosis; Supervisors Shelley Wall and David Mazierski

Awards of Merit

Tracy Xiang, (Animated Media) Preoperative Anemia Patient Education: A Character Driven Story; Supervisors Marc Dryer and Shelley Wall

Avesta Rastan, (Animated Media) Illuminating Medulloblastoma; Supervisors Nick Woolridge and Marc Dryer

Eric Chung, (Still Media – Editorial) Pedicting Peking Man: An Anthropological Approximation; Supervisors Marc Dryer and Chi-Chun Liu

Emily Taylor, (Still Media – Editorial) Clinical Trials of Cancer Drugs Fail Due to Missed Target Protein; Supervisor Marc Dryer

Christine Shan, (Still Media – Editorial) Space Biomining; Supervisor Marc Dryer

Zhen Bai, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional – Molecular/Biological/Life Sciences) The Perfect Match of Demise; Supervisor Derek Ng

Margot Riggi, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional – Molecular/Biological/Life Sciences) Pyocins: Natural Bacteria Killers; Supervisor Derek Ng

Evelyn Lockhart, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional – Molecular/Biological/Life Sciences) An Illusion of Fire and Ice; Supervisor Derek Ng

Ava Schroedl, (Still Media – Didactic/Instructional – Molecular/Biological/Life Sciences) Mapping the Binding Sites of the Opioid Antidote; Supervisor Derek Ng

Professional Category

Awards of Excellence

AXS Studio, (Still Media – Advertising and Marketing/Promotional) The Role of Contractility in Cardiac Function [link not available]

INVIVO Communications, (Animation – Didactic/Instructional – Non-Commercial) COVID-19 and the  Science of Soap

Awards of Merit

INVIVO Communications, (Animation – Didactic/Instructional -- Commercial) Pathophysiology of ATTR-CM

INVIVO Communications, (Animation – Didactic/Instructional -- Commercial) HSDD & Treatment with Bremelanotide

AXS Studio, (Animation – Didactic/Instructional – Non-Commercial) Vaccines vs Antivirals: What’s the Difference?

Artery Studios, (Still Media – Medical Legal) Concepts of twin-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) – Nathan and Marcus Smith

Audra Geras, (Still Media – Advertising and Marketing/Promotional) A Comparison of: Standard Mesh HVAC Filtration versus Heated Nickel Mesh HVAC Filtration

A huge congratulations goes out to all BMC students, graduands and alumni for their success in this year’s AMI Salon.

Prof. Leila Lax Retires

Zoom photos courtesy of Prof. Margot Mackay

Leila retired from Biomedical Communications on June 30, 2020 after 37 exceptional years of teaching and research. BMC threw her a Zoom party on June 26. Leila expressed her gratitude in a speech called Creative Intelligence and the Medical Artist (download PDF).  

I am so grateful for the opportunities that have been provided to me as a faculty member of Biomedical Communications, at the University of Toronto. I am forever grateful to former Director, Prof. Nancy Grahame Joy who gave me one of the greatest gifts in my life, a part-time faculty appointment in Spring of 1983 upon my graduation from Art as Applied to Medicine. It is true, time does fly when you are having fun. I stand before you 37 years later still filled with great passion for our profession, but formally retiring from teaching and research supervision in Biomedical Communications. Beyond the university I will continue with a few selected research and writing initiatives. Because, as you all well know, the creative mind never really retires.