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Frankel Opens Your Eyes to Science

By Helen Huntley

2007 Article Links

Benefits of ASM Membership
Challenges of Writing
Double Epidemic
Fifth Disease
Fish With Hormonal Imbalances
Frankel Photos
Frankel Talk
Hep C Meds
Horror of AIDS
Hantavirus in New Mexico
Juan Reyna
Nature or Nurture
Nosocomial Infections are a Red Flag
Open Eyes to Science
Pandemic Flu Plans
Polio
Project ECHO
Typhoid Mary
West Nile Prevention
Zoo Diseases

Felice Frankel’s camera records brilliant colors and engaging compositions.  But she does not consider herself an artist.  She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology, worked as a lab technician, and then became a landscape and architectural photographer.  She holds dual appointments at Harvard University, where she earned a fellowship in design, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  She is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, where she heads the Envisioning Science program, and is a research scientist at MIT.  Her images invite the viewer to look and ask questions – about science.  As the guest speaker at the Santa Fe Institute on February 7, Frankel talked about “The Power of Images in Science.” 

“When we start communicating with images, the first question should be:  what is it that you want me to see?” said Frankel.  “The first-time viewer has to be led to look.”  In one photograph, she used a microscope to get a unique view of an old computer memory board.  Another photograph showed bubbles on white and black backgrounds.  “You see different things in the bubbles,” she noted.  In a set of photographs of yeast colonies, the colonies were identical, but lit differently to create visual effects.

“I tell stories and show process and show scale with visual data.  These all show context,” Frankel said.  “Context influences our thinking and gives meaning to what we are looking at.”

Although Frankel’s photographs are aesthetically pleasing, she does not consider herself an artist because she is committed to maintaining the science.  “My primary goal in what I do is to communicate science.  I feel I have to be rigorous in that communication.  My intention is not for it to be art,” she explained. 

After the presentation, one audience member said he found her presentation “stimulating” and agreed with “her idea of encouraging scientists to make their science accessible to people.”  Another attendee, an artist and member of the Forum for Art and Science, said Frankel’s topic was “exceedingly important,” and added, “A picture is worth a million words.”