The Art of Science

When Joan Kozel (’76) transferred to Iowa State, she asked her advisor, Harry (Jack) Horner (now professor emeritus), if she could combine art and science for a degree program.

Horner made it happen and, by doing so, gave birth to the Biological Pre-Medical Illustration (BPMI) program. It began in 1974 as an independent-study course and, in 1984, became an official Iowa State major.

BPMI majors create visually engaging work for science journals, textbooks, magazine covers, advertising, and more.

Based in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and jointly administered with the College of Design, the program has recently been renamed Scientific Illustration and Visualization, or SCI VIZ.

“SCI VIZ will continue to represent the interdisciplinary and illustration components of the degree while encapsulating new tools, technology, and techniques taught in the major,” says Kimberly Moss, assistant professor of art and visual culture and director of the program.

Three graduates of the program –– Grace Herzberg, Todd Buck, and Kristen Larson Keil –– illustrate its lasting impact.

Art with empathy

Grace Herzberg’s (’20) interest in scientific illustration goes back millions of years.

In a high school biology class, she watched a documentary about “Lucy,” a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton discovered in 1974.

“Scientists and illustrators got together and used Lucy’s skeleton to come up with what she might have looked like, and I thought that was so cool,” Herzberg says.

Aware of Herzberg’s habit of drawing in class (she admits to getting in trouble for that in middle school) and interest in science (she used to check out field guides from the library before she could read), her biology teacher pointed her toward the BPMI program at Iowa State.

Going through the BPMI program “was a wonderful time,” she says. “It was really hard but very inspiring. My professor (Kimberly Moss) pushed me to improve my skills in art and science and pursue graduate school.”

She did her graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, taking classes alongside medical school students and doing sketches as they all observed surgeries. She also learned computer code for her thesis.

“I developed an interactive puzzle game to help radiology residents learn about MRI pulse sequencing when studying for their board exams,” says Herzberg, who now works with veterinarians as a medical illustrator at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

For Herzberg, empathy is as important to a medical illustrator as artistic ability and a love of science.

“You want to have respect for the anatomy and the body,” she says. “Because of the importance of the topic matter, you want to hone a sensitivity when creating your illustrations because you want people to feel safe and calm.”

Empathy extends to the doctors with whom she works.

“It’s important for medical illustrators to have professional contacts with doctors, to understand their language, and where they’re coming from and what they are going through,” she says.

Herzberg also stresses the need to be grounded in traditional art forms, while staying current with new technologies, whether it be artificial intelligence (AI) or some cool new Adobe program.

“You have to be somewhat of a chameleon, melding your style to the purpose of the work and the needs of the client,” she says. “My style started forming at Iowa State, where I did a lot of traditional work, water color studies, and tons of figure drawing.”

Herzberg continues to develop her computer programming skills, including the use of virtual reality, to create interactive media for veteri-nary students.

Still, less complex projects can bring her a lot of satisfaction. A small side project finds her doing illustrations focused on the dangers that rodent poisons pose for wildlife.

“I love drawing woodland creatures, so this project means a lot to me,” she says.

Drawn to science

A visually minded student, Todd Buck (’87) used to “draw” his notes in his Iowa State classes because it helped him remember information for exams. During a biology class, somebody noticed Buck sketching and told him he could do it for a living.

It was well-timed advice, as Iowa State had recently made BPMI an official major.

Buck looked into the program and “it immediately made sense to my brain,” he says. “I wanted to do art or science, and this allowed me to do both. It’s one of the best undergraduate programs for studying scientific illustration.”

At Iowa State, he created 60 illustrations for a zoology lab manual and had a part-time job in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Sciences. These early experiences gave him the confidence to start his own studio practice, and later attend the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he earned his graduate degree in medical illustration.

“After graduate school, most people work for a company, hospital, or a research institute for a few years before attempting to freelance,” Buck says. “I wanted to freelance right away, so in 1990 I started my own company.”

In his first year after graduate school, he landed a huge project to illustrate an Atlas of Liver Surgery for the University of Chicago. He was one of the first to create illustrations focusing on living donor liver transplant surgery, which found him in operating rooms observing procedures.

Buck sees himself as a liaison between medical experts and their intended audience.

“I take complex content and summarize it in visual form,” he says. “Visuals intended to educate other medical experts, such as surgeons and physicians, will be quite different and more complex than visuals intended for patient education. When visuals help a patient understand what is going on in their own body, they are more inclined to follow a treatment regimen in the best interest of their own health and wellness. My goal is to elucidate concepts and clarify information while also captivating the audience with beautiful imagery.”

After years of creating beautiful imagery in near isolation, doing award-winning work for pharmaceutical companies, medical journals, and textbooks, and even Google, Buck decided to add teaching to his list of professional activities. He recently stepped down as illustration professor at Northern Illinois University after 20 years.

Like the “you can do that for a living” advice he got as an undergraduate, the most important lesson he conveys to students is a simple one.

“You have to love science,” he says. “People good at this are science nerds and want to translate information visually. Your illustrations are only as good as your understanding of the science.”

Illustrating the brain

Kristen Larson Keil (’04) has spent her career illustrating the brain and its complex components.

“This is a great field,” she says. “We’ve figured out most of the body, but much of the brain is still a mystery. There are discoveries still to be made, and to be at the front end of that is exciting.”

Growing up in Kearney, Nebraska, Larson Keil took a lot of science classes and was really into art. She considered becoming a doctor until an art teacher told her about the field of medical illustration. For Larson Keil, it sounded like the perfect combination of everything she loved. She researched programs and discovered that the closest was at Iowa State.

After graduating from Iowa State, she went on to earn a master of science degree in medical illustration from the Medical College of Georgia (now Augusta University). Then she took a position working in Neuroscience Publications at Barrow Neurological Institute, an international leader in treatment, research, and education of brain and spinal conditions.

Larson Keil creates illustrations of the brain and spine for medical journals, textbooks, and other publications. For the past three years, she has served as manager of Neuroscience Publications at Barrow, overseeing the work of a staff of 22 while continuing her own work.

She is currently working on a major book project that looks at cavernous malformations, which are abnormal clusters of closely packed, thin-walled blood vessels. The book project, a result of a series of journal articles by Barrow surgeons, takes a closer look at these lesions in the brain, how they affect patients, and the nuances of their surgical approaches.

“Medical illustration is an outlet that helps people,” Larson Keil says. “I know the illustrations I’m creating are helping physicians have a better understanding of the brain’s anatomy so they can perform their surgeries better and serve patients with better outcomes.”

Successful medical illustrators need to be creative, curious, and flexible, she says. This means keeping up with new technologies, not only in the medical field but also in the world of illustration. Right now, the hottest topic is AI.

“AI can’t do medical illustration,” Larson Keil says. “It isn’t accurate enough, but it’s only going to get better. We need to figure out how to use AI to make us better and faster, but there will always be a need for our expertise and underlying knowledge.”