<![CDATA[LIFE SCIENCE STUDIOS - Blog]]>Thu, 02 Jul 2026 02:02:57 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Illustrated outreach: Posters as Tools for Invasive Species Awareness]]>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:33:51 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/illustrated-outreach-posters-as-tools-for-invasive-species-awareness
Even in a digital age, posters remain one of the most effective and accessible tools for bringing community awareness of environmental issues. The Invasive Species Collaborative at Virginia Tech asked me to create five posters that would help them explain the massive impacts of invasive species. Three of the posters focused on impacts (Economic, Environmental, Human Health and Wellbeing), one featured Virginia invasive species, and the primary poster was an overview of ISC's mission and efforts.
Even in a digital age, posters remain one of the most effective and accessible tools for bringing community awareness of environmental issues. The Invasive Species Collaborative at Virginia Tech asked me to create five posters that would help them explain the massive impacts of invasive species. Three of the posters focused on impacts (Economic, Environmental, Human Health and Wellbeing), one featured Virginia invasive species, and the primary poster was an overview of ISC's mission and efforts.
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Poster Creation from Concept to Final Design

The steering committee worked closely with me to bring these posters to life. The first steps involved determining the most important content and the message we wanted each poster to convey. I then created a color palette and design aesthetic that would carry through all of the posters to create a cohesive set.

Every poster starts by defining an invasive species. This was key because some posters may be used individually and this definition really helps the readers understand exactly what we are discussing. The "impacts" posters all included boxes on the lefthand side so we could showcase specific examples, while the righthand side was reserved for key data and statistics. Notice, I had to paint a tick. This was the second time in a month that I had to paint a tick and I can't stand ticks!
The steering committee worked closely with me to bring these posters to life. The first steps involved determining the most important content and the message we wanted each poster to convey. I then created a color palette and design aesthetic that would carry through all of the posters to create a cohesive set.

Every poster starts by defining an invasive species. This was key because some posters may be used individually and this definition really helps the readers understand exactly what we are discussing. The "impacts" posters all included boxes on the lefthand side so we could showcase specific examples, while the righthand side was reserved for key data and statistics. Notice, I had to paint a tick. This was the second time in a month that I had to paint a tick and I can't stand ticks!
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Each Image is a Watercolor Painting

The posters required a combination of digital elements and painted images. I created watercolor paintings for all of the different species and landscapes featured in the posters. The painting of the saguaro cactus surrounded by burning buffelgrass is particularly meaningful. My husband grew up in Tucson and spent many volunteer hours pulling out tufts of buffelgrass to try and protect the beloved saguaros.​
The posters required a combination of digital elements and painted images. I created watercolor paintings for all of the different species and landscapes featured in the posters. The painting of the saguaro cactus surrounded by burning buffelgrass is particularly meaningful. My husband grew up in Tucson and spent many volunteer hours pulling out tufts of buffelgrass to try and protect the beloved saguaros.
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​Consider Using a Poster for Your Own Outreach

An eye-catching illustrated poster can really bring attention to your work, providing a lot of information in a single space that can be brought along to conferences, educational events, or hung up in classrooms and museums. Visual storytelling can have a greater impact on a wide audience, bringing awareness and inspiring action.

These are not the first outreach posters I have created. I made a poster about the proper handling and release of manta rays and devil rays on tuna fishing ships. The posters now hang in ship galleys across the oceans in multiple languages in an effort to help prevent unnecessary manta ray deaths. I am hopeful these posters will bring awareness to the invasive species you may encounter in your own life, and inspire the public to take action. I personally learned a ton in the process of creating these posters, and I will never look at that barberry bush in my neighborhood the same way again!
An eye-catching illustrated poster can really bring attention to your work, providing a lot of information in a single space that can be brought along to conferences, educational events, or hung up in classrooms and museums. Visual storytelling can have a greater impact on a wide audience, bringing awareness and inspiring action.

These are not the first outreach posters I have created. I made a poster about the proper handling and release of manta rays and devil rays on tuna fishing ships. The posters now hang in ship galleys across the oceans in multiple languages in an effort to help prevent unnecessary manta ray deaths. I am hopeful these posters will bring awareness to the invasive species you may encounter in your own life, and inspire the public to take action. I personally learned a ton in the process of creating these posters, and I will never look at that barberry bush in my neighborhood the same way again!
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Resources

If you are interested in finding out more about the Invasive Species Collaborative, check out ​ https://invasivespeciesvt.org/

If you think a poster would help spread your message, let me know! Let's design something impactful together. Click to Get Started
If you are interested in finding out more about the Invasive Species Collaborative, check out ​ https://invasivespeciesvt.org/

If you think a poster would help spread your message, let me know! Let's design something impactful together. Click to Get Started
]]><![CDATA[Toxic Proteins for Drug Discovery]]>Fri, 06 Jun 2025 09:43:33 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/toxic-proteins-for-drug-discoveryPlants, mushrooms, snails... sessile or slow-moving organisms create potent toxins for defense and, in the case of cone snails, to subdue prey. Noah Whiteman explores the ways in which we humans use natural toxins for drug development, and this latest article includes a couple of my illustrations. Enjoy! (click the image below to read the article)
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As an avid mushroom hunter, I am acutely aware of the deadly toxin, alpha-amanitin, which is found in death cap mushrooms. A forager learns to identify the deadly mushrooms first! Noah’s article describes how this toxin is being studied for cancer treatments. Mind blown.
My illustration of the cone snail capturing fish was inspired by my time as an undergrad in Mo’orea, French Polynesia. We were wary of walking through the sand just in case we stumbled upon a toxic (and intoxicatingly beautiful) cone snail. ​
]]><![CDATA[Wrasses and Parrotfish]]>Fri, 09 May 2025 06:58:26 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/wrasses-and-parrotfishWrasses and parrotfish (family Labridae) are among the most diverse lineages of reef fishes on earth. A new study in Science Advances, led by Chase Brownstein, sheds light on the explosion of evolutionary innovation and diversification that happened 20 million years ago and led to the reef fish diversity we see today. 

The authors asked me to create paintings to represent different groups of wrasses and parrotfish for their figures. Painting reef fish is always so rewarding because I get to use some of the more vibrant colors on my palette! Hello, turquoise and magenta.

Read the full article here: ​https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adu6149
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]]><![CDATA[Xantusia Lizard Ecomorphs]]>Tue, 29 Apr 2025 06:38:39 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/xantusia-lizard-ecomorphsA new paper by Sonal Singhal and her colleagues uses the example of night lizard (Xantusia) ecomorphs to look at different approaches to understanding speciation. My role as a science illustrator was to paint the two species, paying close attention to their morphological differences, and their distinct habitats: rock crevices and decaying plant matter.
The paintings were all created using watercolor and a little white gouache. Creating the backgrounds was a ton of fun and very different from my usual process. Most of my paintings are detailed and involve tiny brushes. For these backgrounds, I let the paint and water do their magic without much plan in mind. Using a ton of water, some choice colors, and a little bit of salt, the first layer of paint showed the contours of the rocks and leaves. I was then able to go in and add the leaf veins and shadows to complete the background paintings. 
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To read more about this research: https://academic.oup.com/evolinnean/article/3/1/kzae024/7777004​
]]><![CDATA[Chasing the Niche: Escaping Climate Change Threats in Place, Time, and Space]]>Thu, 10 Apr 2025 07:19:13 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/chasing-the-niche-escaping-climate-change-threats-in-place-time-and-spaceNew research by Ranjan Muthukrishnan and his colleagues explores how species adapt to climate change by changing their phenology, behavior, and/or range. The authors worked with Life Science Studios to create an illustration that would demonstrate a species using different ecological responses to mitigate the impacts of a warming climate. Check out the publication in Global Change Biology.

First, we needed to pick a species! We chose a lizard in a rocky, mountainous landscape where climate change has made its usual perch on a rock too hot. The lizard may adapt by altering its behavior (seeking shade), changing its phenology (reproducing during cooler times of the year), shifting its range (to higher, cooler elevations), or a combination of all three responses.
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The Illustration Process

With all of our clients, the first step is brainstorming. There are many ways to illustrate a concept, so I like to sketch out a number of ideas to present to a client. Here is the sketch sheet I sent to the authors for this project. As you can see, there were a bunch of different ways I was thinking about depicting the concept of ecological changes to climate change. We ultimately settled on a more artistic vision of a lizard in a full landscape.
The final design involved painting individual elements and combining them in Photoshop and Illustrator. Each component, like this little lizard on her rock, was painted using watercolors.

The paintings were then stitched together and the wording and borders added in Adobe Illustrator to create the final figure for publication.
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]]><![CDATA[Glowing Fish]]>Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:37:35 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/glowing-fishThe latest research from Alison Gould and Hannah Osland at Temple University is all about symbiotic bioluminescent bacteria strains that colonize the light organs of Siphamia tubifer fish. For this figure, I worked closely with the scientists to understand the structure of the light organ in the larval and adult fish, and created both watercolor illustrations of the fish as well as vector illustrations of the light organs and bacteria colonization.

You can read their paper in Trends in Microbiology here: Gould and Osland 2025
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Look at all those teeny tiny little glowy bacteria!

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]]><![CDATA[Congratulations to Dr. Munoz!]]>Wed, 02 Oct 2024 08:41:03 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/congratulations-to-dr-munoz
Dr. Martha Munoz at Yale was granted the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship! I am so excited for her. She does incredibly thoughtful work on how behavior influences the rates and patterns of evolution. I have had the privilege of working with Martha and her postdocs, grad students, and collaborators over the last few years and have painted lots of Anolis lizards for her. Every time I start a project with Martha, I learn something new. Congratulations, Martha, this is so well deserved!

Please check out the MacArthur Foundation website to see a really great video about her work: ​
​www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2024/martha-munoz
]]><![CDATA[Using AI Science Illustrations Degrades Your Research]]>Wed, 19 Jun 2024 09:51:19 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/using-ai-science-illustrations-degrades-your-researchA couple of months ago, I was shocked and disappointed to see an AI-generated image as the cover of a scientific journal. I posted on X (formerly Twitter) about how I felt and the journal quickly removed the image and asked me to write an article about why journals and scientists should not use AI images in their publications. I argue that using AI science illustrations is troublesome for the scientific community as inaccurate images degrade the quality and rigor of the scientific literature. It is also unethical and harmful to artists as AI is trained on our work without our consent or compensation. 

You can read the article here: Why Scientific Journals Should Ban AI-Generated Images
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]]><![CDATA[Deep Sea Anglerfish]]>Fri, 24 May 2024 13:42:47 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/deep-sea-anglerfishChase Brownstein and colleages at Yale have just published research in Current Biology about deep sea anglerfish. This group of fish has the unique trait of sexual parasitism, whereby males are much smaller than females and attach themselves to her. The researchers demonstrate a connection between the evolution of sexual parasitism and radiation into the deep sea environment. 
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I painted a number of deep sea anglerfishes, frogfishes, batfishes, and others for this paper. It was a big challenge because the frogfishes are very camouflaged and have tons of color and pattern complexity and variation. For the deep sea species, reference photos are often very limited or are of specimens in poor health. Despite the challenges, this was such a fun project to do. The fish are so weird and interesting! I quickly discovered that watercolor doesn't get quite black enough, so many of the fish are painted in gouache, which was fun to play with. 
]]><![CDATA[Happy New Year!]]>Fri, 31 Dec 2021 18:48:14 GMThttps://www.lifesciencestudios.com/blog/happy-new-year30436142021, like 2020, had us continuing to hunker down and try to stay safe through this pandemic. Between projects, I spent a lot of time wandering outside with my family here in the Pacific Northwest. It was a year of growth for Life Science Studios in many ways. I had the chance to work with a lot of new clients from all over the world and create illustrations about everything from fly brains to disease transmission. Every project was rewarding and a wonderful learning experience for me. Many of my projects from this past year have yet to be published, so I can't wait to share them with you when they come out in 2022!
The mushroom shop also grew this year as I expanded to selling mugs wholesale in a number of small shops in Montreal and Oregon. I also added a few new designs and hope to add more next year.
The illustration business isn't the only thing that is grew in 2021... I have been busy growing a new human as well! Our little girl is due in March and we can't wait to meet her. I will be spending January and February wrapping up existing projects and then going on maternity leave. I will be back to taking on new projects and clients in July 2022. Wishing you and your families a safe and happy new year!
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