Em Kief
A young professional with her Master’s in Biomedical Visualization, Emily is excited to help inspire curiosity and creativity in science through alternative media. Having been an avid paleontology and biology enthusiast as a child, Emily has retained her wonder and passion for the biological world throughout her education and into her current work. While attending the University of Illinois-Chicago, she acted as a teaching assistant in undergraduate evolution courses and spent her free time volunteering as an illustrator at the Field Museum. Through her teaching positions, as well as through her graduate research, she has come to realize how little exposure many students, and the general public in turn, have to scientific topics and theory and is actively working to rectify this. Currently working as a Veterinary Medical Illustrator at the University of Georgia in the Educational Resources Department, Emily enjoys exploring a variety of topics and mediums while creating a variety of accessible educational materials for Veterinary Medicine students. In her free time, she also continues to work on the graphic novel series from her graduate research, intended as an aid in the education on the topic of Evolution theory. Emily plans to continue stretching the boundaries of science education into newer and more novel media for the general public.
My Mission
Laughing Skull Visual aims to make science education more approachable and accessible to a general audience. Many scientific topics appear very complex and can be difficult to communicate, which can make then unappealing to the general audience. But, this material can be simplified and broken down into more manageable parcels of visual content. Likewise, the evolution of life can seem inaccessible. However, the remains of the past are everywhere and with careful hands and a little bit of cleaning up, there is no reason we can't all learn something new.