2022 BMC speaker series: Ilia Blinderman, Senior Journalist-Engineer and Co-founder at The Pudding

Ilia Blinderman is a senior data scientist and developer at The Pudding. Photo courtesy I. Blinderman.

From academia to data journalism: Research in non-academic settings

Data journalism is a unique example of research methods used outside the academic context, but resources on entering the field are scarce. This talk will outline Ilia's transition from academia to visual, data-driven storytelling at The Pudding, and provide a primer on how to tell engaging, evidence-based stories outside the typical scientific setting.

Date and Time:
June 24, 2022
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2022-bmc-speaker-series-data-journalism-research-in-non-academic-settings-tickets-367235068977

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Ilia Blinderman is a senior data scientist and developer at The Pudding, a data-driven storytelling publication he co-founded in 2017.

Twitter @iliablinderman

Web site http://iliablinderman.com/

2022 BMC speaker series: Jeremiah Dickey, Founding Animation Director at Ted-Ed

Jeremiah Dickey, Founding Animation Director at Ted-Ed

The Importance of Being Earnest: Adventures in Visual Storytelling

We are at a point in history where, for better or for worse, most people learn about the world they live in through the media they consume on the internet. For some this is a terrifying prospect, and for others an inspiring call to action. All of which is to say, for visually-minded creative people, it’s an exciting (and crucial) time to be entering the conversation. In my talk I’ll be skipping a stone across ten years of making educational short films for TED-Ed, sharing some aspects of the creative process, pitfalls to avoid while embarking on journeys of discovery, and strategies for making a virtue out of ignorance.

Date and Time:
June 3, 2022
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Missed the session? Watch the recorded session presentation here: https://vimeo.com/716950540/6838eafc67

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Jeremiah Dickey has been creating fine animation since 1997, working both independently and in cahoots with numerous studios. Jeremiah was a founding Animation Director at TED-Ed from 2012-2021, making in that time over 40 short films on subjects from ancient mythology to cutting-edge science, and much in between. Past work includes frequent collaboration with filmmaker Emily Hubley on animation for a wide variety of award-winning documentaries and independent films.

Website: http://www.jeremiahdickey.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinsimian

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/tinsimian

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremiah.dickey.9

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiahdickey

2022 BMC speaker series: Daisy Chung, Science Visual Communicator/Illustrator

Daisy Chung, Science Visual Communicator/Illustrator

Visualizing Science for the Public

Explaining complex science to the public can be confusing and intimidating. Engaging your audience to care about the subject matter is even more challenging. In this talk, Daisy will share from her experience as a science visual communicator and ex-graphics editor at National Geographic innovative ways to emotionally connect people with information through compelling graphics and powerful visual storytelling.

Date and Time:
May 20, 2022
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Missed the session? Watch the recorded session presentation here:
https://vimeo.com/713916745/755f4b2f3c

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Daisy Chung is an award-winning freelance science visual communicator/illustrator originally from Taiwan and New Zealand. She currently works at her home studio in Sunnyvale, CA, where she creates data and infographic designs to communicate complex science, with a focus on environmental and biological topics. 

Previously, she was the DataViz Designer at Surgo Ventures, Creative Director at wikiHow, and former graphics editor at National Geographic.  Daisy aims to make complex science more accessible to a broader audience through visual storytelling. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Scientific American, National Geographic, Cell Press, and various platforms. When not drawing, you can find Daisy hiking, climbing rocks, harness-training her cat, and finding different uses for sourdough starters.

Website: http://www.daisychung.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chung.daisy/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/daisychungart/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chungdaisy/

2022 BMC speaker series: Jeff Day, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Jeff Day, Assistant Professor, Medical and Biological Illustration at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Video for all: Helping more learners benefit from your media

Can you even imagine learning any more without video? It is so useful, so efficient, and so pervasive. However, not everyone can easily grasp all parts of every video. What are some strategies we can use to make our teaching videos more usable for more people? In this talk, we will discuss Universal Design for Learning principles and how we can be thoughtful about improving accessibility and reducing cognitive load for all types of learners.

Date and Time:
May 6, 2022
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Missed the session? Watch the recorded session presentation here:
https://vimeo.com/707846203/7d9e1ca448

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Jeff Day is an assistant professor in medical and biological illustration at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches animation and design. Jeff also worked as a digital media specialist at the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, where he focused on improving online engagement. He holds a BA in biology, an MD from Case Western Reserve University, and an MA in medical and biological illustration from Johns Hopkins University.

Website: https://medicalart.johnshopkins.edu/day/

BMC director promoted to professor

We are proud to announce that Dr. Jodie Jenkinson, director of the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications program at the University of Toronto, has been promoted to full professor.

Effective July 1, 2022, this academic appointment acknowledges Jenkinson's contribution to research and teaching, and the training of highly-qualified personnel.

Program director since 2019, Jenkinson is a visualization scientist. She researches the role that visual representations play in learning, the design of visual representations for optimal impact, and the development of standards of visual communication in the scientific visualization community.

As principal investigator of the ScienceVis Lab, Jenkinson's research has been supported by the Connaught Fund, the National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Her work has been published in such journals as Nature Communications, Computers & Education, and the Journal of Molecular Biology.

Since 2012, Jenkinson has supervised the training of more than 30 graduate students in biomedical communications.

Jodie Jenkinson stands with three of the four graduate students whose research she currently supervises. From left: Aimy Meng Yu Wang, Professor Jodie Jenkinson, Mimi Yuejun Guo and Amy Ke Er Zhang. Absent: Sana Khan.

We extend our heartiest congratulations to our colleague Professor Jodie Jenkinson!

2022 BMC speaker series: Wim van Egmond–Microphotographer, Filmmaker and Artist

Wim van Egmond, Microphotographer, Filmmaker and Artist

Portraying microorganisms

In his talk, Wim will show examples of his work and explain how to find, handle and manipulate microorganisms to be able to observe them in close detail. Wim will describe how he photographs and films them. He will also show some examples of the drawings of his favourite microscopists from the past, giving a glimpse into how microbiology started. Wim is currently studying 17th-century microscopists and is working with the original microscopes of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.

Date and Time:
April 22, 2022
2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Missed the session? Watch the recorded session presentation here:
https://vimeo.com/702910812/b0ba4cbf12

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Wim van Egmond is a Dutch artist whose work lies deceptively close to scientific work. He is fascinated by the almost artificial way in which science depicts nature. Wim began his career as a visual autonomous artist, studying painting and specializing in photography and using optical techniques such as microscopy. He portrays microbes and makes micro-landscapes. Initially, with the aim to make autonomous work often with one foot in the scientific world, he received commissions from the scientific community. Wim has developed techniques to create unique movies and images that were not seen before in both the worlds of science and of art. 

Website: https://wimvanegmond.com/

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/wimvanegmond

2022 BMC speaker series: Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, Founding Director of The Continuum Robotics Laboratory

Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, Founding Director of The Continuum Robotics Laboratory, University of Toronto

NEXT GENERATION SURGICAL ROBOTS

Continuum robots have the potential to radically improve innovation across multiple applications such as accessing kidney stones through the urethra, or treating brain cancer through the nose without having to open the skull. But this paradigm shift entails moving beyond discrete articulated robot bodies to continuously bending ones. In this talk, you will learn how Jessica and her lab design, create, and control the next generation of surgical robots.

Date and Time:
April 8, 2022
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Missed the session? Watch the recorded session presentation here:
https://vimeo.com/697586319/071e82f5ee

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Jessica Burgner-Kahrs is an Associate Professor with the Departments of Mathematical & Computational Sciences, Computer Science, and Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, the founding Director of the Continuum Robotics Laboratory, and Associate Director of the Robotics Institute at the University of Toronto, Canada. She received her Diplom and Ph.D. in computer science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany in 2006 and 2010 respectively. Before joining the University of Toronto, she was Associate Professor with Leibniz University Hannover, Germany and a postdoctoral fellow with Vanderbilt University, USA. 

Her research focus lies on continuum robotics and in particular on their design, modeling, planning and control, as well as human-robot interaction. Her fundamental robotics research is driven by applications in minimally-invasive surgery and maintenance, repair, and operations. Her research was recognized with the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Engineering Science Prize, the Lower Saxony Science Award in the category Young Researcher, and she was entitled Young Researcher of the Year 2015 in Germany. She was elected as one of the Top 40 under 40 in the category Science and Society in 2015, 2016, and 2017 by the business magazine Capital and elected one of 100 Young Global Leaders from the World Economic Forum in 2019. Jessica is a Senior member of the IEEE, a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, and serves as a senior editor for IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters.

UTM Department of Biology Speaker Series: Patrick Lynch, Yale University

Patrick Lynch, Former Interactive Media Designer at Yale University

DIGITAL FIELD GUIDES TO AN ANALOG WORLD

"I've had a lifelong interest in both visual communication and various aspects of natural history, and was lucky enough to be able to combine my interests over a 45-year multimedia career at Yale University. This talk will look at the logistics of creating my books, all of which were wholly or at least partially generated with digital tools."

Date and Time:
March 25, 2022
12 p.m. to 1 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A

Seminar Link: https://lnkd.in/eqyvCfVA

Host: Professor Michael Corrin, Biomedical Communications

BMC Speaker Series 2022—Tricks of the trade full program:
https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

U of T grad student wins The Vesalius Trust’s top award

We are proud to learn that Shehryar (Shay) Saharan is this year's recipient of the prestigious Alan Cole Award, the top student prize awarded by The Vesalius Trust.

The Vesalius Trust is a non-profit foundation that promotes innovation in visual communication for the health sciences by supporting students through scholarship funding and research grants, and through continuing professional education.

Saharan, a second-year graduate student in the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto, was recognized for his project An interactive educational resource for knee biomechanics instruction.

L: Photo of Shehryar Saharan. R: Screen shot from Saharan’s master’s research project.

The Trust also awarded Vesalius Scholarships to three MScBMC second-year students:

Alex Ka Hei Ho for Nerve transfer surgery for peripheral nerve injuries: a patient and healthcare provider educational animation

L: Photo of Alex Ka Hei Ho. R: Screen shot from Ho’s master’s research project.

Aimy Meng Yu Wang for Design for the heart (D4H): creating a patient-informed resource-set for communicating heart failure

L: Photo of Aimy Meng Yu Wang. R: Screen shot from Wang’s master’s research project.

Amy Ke Er Zhang for Building undergraduate life science students' confidence and understanding in practicing visual science communication.

L: Photo of Amy Ke Er Zhang. R: Screen shot from Zhang’s master’s research project.

The Vesalius Trust awarded Vesalius Research Grants to support the work of two MScBMC second-year students:

Cassie Fangyu Ren for her research project, A 2D patient education animation on PTSD-SUD for PTSD patients

L: Photo of Cassie Fangyu Ren. R: Screen shot from Ren’s master’s research project.

Naomi Robson for her research project, A user-informed, interactive, digital three-dimensional pelvic anatomy model for pelvic healthcare professionals: modelling a neglected region, and incorporating user testing and expert certification practices into 3D model creation.

L: Photo of Naomi Robson. R: Screen shot from Robson’s master’s research project.

Thank you to our students for continuing U of T's excellent record in attracting Vesalius Trust funding to the Biomedical Communications program.

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Links referenced in announcement:

Shay Saharan’s web site https://www.ss-design.site/

Master of Science in Biomedical Communications web site https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/

Alex Ho’s web site https://alexandraho.com/

Aimy Wang’s web site https://www.aimywang.com/

Amy Ke Er Zhang’s web site https://www.amykzhang.com/

Cassie Ren’s web site https://www.cassieren.com/

Naomi Robson’s web site https://www.robsonvisuals.com/

2022 BMC speaker series: Federica Fragapane, Data Visualization Designer

Federica Fragapane, Data Visualization Designer

Designing visual narratives: data visualization for and with people

As an information designer, I constantly explore the possibilities that designing a data visualization opens in terms of creating a connection with the people. The main purpose is communicating the design process behind many of my projects which aims at engaging the readers, inviting them to read my pieces and therefore exploring the information and stories I’m telling through them. Visual experimentation has a significant role in such research.

During the talk I’ll show the process behind a set of data visualizations with a common ground of interest for the relationship between designer and people: not only as readers, but also as narrators. I'll share the design phases and the lessons learned throughout the processes

Date and Time:
March 18, 2022
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET
One-hour presentation including Q&A.

Missed the session? Watch the recorded session presentation here: https://vimeo.com/689842804/682e4a76a4

BMC Speaker Series 2022–Tricks of the trade full program: https://bmc.med.utoronto.ca/news-events/2022/02/21/bmc-speakers-2022

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Federica Fragapane is an independent information designer. She has designed projects and data visualizations for Google, the United Nations, Scientific American, BBC Science Focus, Columbia University and she periodically collaborates with La Lettura–Corriere della Sera.

Fragapane is a co-author for the Geopolitical Atlas of Water (Hoepli, 2019) and for Planet Earth (National Geographic Kids and White Star, 2016). 

She is Research Associate at ODI, a global think tank.

In October 2021, Fragapane won the Pierre Keller Award at the Hublot Design Prize 2021 in London, an international recognition that aims to support early career talent in the world of design. Many of her projects have an experimental approach and are aimed at exploring the design of new visual languages and the relationship between data visualization and people.