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Lauren Solomon's avatar

I finally finally finally made the 5 minutes to read this. And it was SO good. I nodded my head so hard it could have fallen off. (of course "making it pretty" made me want to shriek). I never appreciated illustrating science with this level of sophistication -- but then again I didn't come to it with your credentials (I was basically a dabbler in both biology and art). Now, if only we could get MIT to grant Ph.D.s for this work and give it some real cred. Keep it up Mary! Love your work.

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Mary O’Reilly's avatar

Thanks so much Lauren! You know as much as anybody that design is a science all to itself. Boston College has a grad course in the chemistry department for science communication. I don't know who else is doing this but I hope it catches on. They had me guest lecture a couple of times so I had the good fortune to explain all of this to young scientists.

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Lauren Solomon's avatar

Bravo Boston College!! That’s great!!!

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Acadia's avatar

Respectfully, there’s no doubt about it. The need for science communication has definitely never been greater. ❤️ Please keep doing what you do.

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Mary O’Reilly's avatar

I absolutely will. Thank you.

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Valerie Geary's avatar

This is my favorite thing you've written. Just shared!

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Mary O’Reilly's avatar

Thank you! I don't know where it came from but it's left me with a lot to chew on.

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Anahita Vieira's avatar

"I don't even like to cook" 😂😂😂💛💀💀💀 The terrible twos are so deeply misunderstood. Thank you for bringing us along with you on your journey. We're the richer for it, no doubt.

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Anahita Vieira's avatar

(I have many more thoughts in response to this post but I'll save them for our in person chat) :)

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Mary O’Reilly's avatar

I can't wait to hear them. Thanks for the many long conversations that have helped to fuel the trip!

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Dave lahr's avatar

Thank you Mary for bringing us along! I for one am in awe of what you've done and greatly miss working with graphics designers and artists who helped us come up with new visualizations.

To wit, I currently have some wildly messy slides that are trying to represent 3 different aspects of single-cell RNA-seq that come together to tell a coherent story about the science but I worry it is incredibly hard if not impossible to convey to people not immersed in it. It would be awesome to have someone like you to help sort it out - your team(s) are lucky to have you!

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Mary O’Reilly's avatar

Thank you Dave! Sounds like a fun challenge. I know lots of people like me. I'll send you some names!

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