An Animation That Explains a Thesis in 5 Minutes
© 2013 EPFL
A doctoral student in computational biology has succeeded with the daunting task of summarizing four years of research through a short animated film dedicated to friends and family.
How does one explain the research quotidian to others: the hours spent in books, the numerous conferences, the research carried out, and especially the specific and exacting work of a doctoral thesis? Laura Symul circumvented this difficulty by taking advantage of all the tools she has collected over the course of her studies. “I’m naturally curious, so I have floated between different departments and laboratories.” As such, she put together an animated film that was conceived, designed, and created just before the public defense of her doctoral thesis.
The young researcher initially earned a bachelor’s degree in physics before turning to electronics, robotics and IT and before joining the field of applied mathematics. That is how she discovered bioinformatics and decided to do her PhD in the EPFL Laboratory of Computational Biology. “Modeling entails putting an equation to a phenomenon. It’s an interesting challenge. My master’s work was quite abstract. However, the thesis has allowed me to work on actual data issued by biologists.”
For her thesis the doctoral student was required, in particular, to model the regulation of a gene in the liver after its transcription into messenger RNA. The complexity of the study is the reason why the PhD candidate decided on using a short animated film to explain her public defense to family and friends who are completely foreign to the world of science. “I think this is a good way to think about one’s work and what is important.”
Given her education, the researcher could combine her academic background in data visualization and illustration – two means of explaining science. “Visual communication interests me enormously. I produced many illustrations alongside my thesis, collaborating regularly with scientific journals.” Laura Symul is very interested by the emergence of data journalism in the United States and by scientific communication in particular. She is, no doubt, part of this new generation of researchers who hope to bring science into the public sphere.
Her accomplishments are clearly evident at www.illustratedscience.net.