Felice Frankel

Last updated
Felice Frankel
Felice Frankel, 2004.jpg
Felice Frankel, 2004
Born
Nationality American
Alma mater Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY)
Known forPhotographs of scientific and engineering subjects
Awards Fellow of AAAS
Guggenheim Fellow
Lennart Nilsson Award for Scientific Photography
Loeb Fellow
Distinguished Alumna, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Progress Medal of the Photographic Society of America
Chancellor’s Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the
Arts and Sciences at the University of California
Scientific career
FieldsScience and engineering photography
Institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard University

Felice Frankel is a research scientist and photographer of scientific images. She has received multiple awards, both for the aesthetic quality of her science photographs and for her ability to effectively communicate complicated scientific information in images. [1] felicefrankel.com

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Brooklyn, Felice Frankel attended Midwood High School and then Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY), where she majored in biology. She became an architectural photographer. [2] :xii

Career redirection

In 1991–1992, she was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Unlike many of her visual design colleagues, she decided to return to her scientific roots, auditing a class in chemistry taught by professor George M. Whitesides. Working with one of his postdocs, Nick Abbott, they collaboratively produced a striking image that was selected for the cover of the professional journal Science . Impressed with her work, Whitesides advised her, "Stay with this, Felice, you are doing something that no one else is doing." [2] :xii

This launched her into a new career working in alternation at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as funding and interesting work became available. As of 2019, she has spent more time at MIT, working at a number of departments and labs. She has observed, "That's the thing about MIT. If you have something to offer, even without formal credentials (I don't have a graduate degree), MIT will support you." [2] :xii

Career

Frankel's photo of ferrofluid (2002) Ferrofluid.Frankel.jpg
Frankel's photo of ferrofluid (2002)
External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg No Small Matter, Felice Frankel, PRI, Studio 360 video, September 9, 2010
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg More than Pretty Pictures Felice Frankel, PRI, TEDx Boston video, October 13, 2010
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Reimagining Nanotechnology, Felice Frankel, PBS NewsHour video, March 9, 2010
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg How to communicate science visually, Felice Frankel, MIT News video, October 26, 2012

Felice Frankel joined MIT in 1994. Presently, she is a research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT with support from Mechanical Engineering. She has also been a senior research fellow in the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing from 2005-2009, and a visiting scholar at the Harvard Medical School Department of Systems Biology.

Her most recent books are her handbooks for communicating science and engineering: The Visual Elements, Photography (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Frankel was interviewed by The Chemical Engineer about her new guide to help engineers (2024). The second Element, Design will be published in March, 2024. The third Element, Abstraction, will be published March 2025. Her previous book, Picturing Science and Engineering (MIT Press, 2018) is based on her MIT OpenCourseware course.

Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, Frankel's images have been published in a number of professional journal articles, magazine covers, and various other international publications for general audiences such as National Geographic , Nature , Science , Angewandte Chemie , Advanced Materials , Materials Today , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Newsweek , Scientific American , Discover Magazine , and New Scientist , among others. In 2003–2007 she contributed a series of columns, Sightings, in American Scientist addressing the power of imaging science. [3] [4] [5]

Frankel and her work have been profiled in The New York Times , Wired , Life Magazine , The Boston Globe , [6] [7] The Washington Post , The Chronicle of Higher Education , National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Science Friday , [8] The Christian Science Monitor , and various European publications. Her limited-edition photographs are included in a number of corporate and private collections, [9] and were part of MOMA’s 2008 exhibition, Design and the Elastic Mind. [10] Her work was featured in the 2016 MIT Museum exhibition Images of Discovery: Communicating Science through Photography. [11]

Frankel founded the "Image and Meaning" workshops and conferences to develop new approaches for promoting the public understanding of science through visual expression. She also was principal investigator of the National Science Foundation-funded program "Picturing to Learn", an effort to study how making representations aids students in teaching and learning. [12]

Image integrity

Frankel is a strong advocate of image integrity for scientific and documentary photographic images. She encourages researches to question various image adjustment and enhancement techniques such as color enhancement, grayscale inversion, or selective deletion of distracting or irrelevant elements, as well as more subtle manipulations of image histograms, all in service of goals such as clarity of communication. [2] :315–339

Ultimately, the decision must not change the data. She insists that all image manipulation must be fully disclosed, to avoid misleading the reader regarding the integrity of the scientific images. In her 2018 book, Frankel has reprinted the journal publication guidelines of Nature , Science , and Cell , comparing the extensively detailed directives of the first journal with the minimal guidance given in the latter two publications as of her book's publication deadline. [2] :340–343

Awards and honors

Books

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin H. Land</span> American scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur (1909–1991)

Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.

<i>The Family of Man</i> 1950s photography global exhibition

The Family of Man was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) department of photography. According to Steichen, the exhibition represented the "culmination of his career". The title was taken from a line in a Carl Sandburg poem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War photography</span> Photographic documentation of wars

War photography involves photographing armed conflict and its effects on people and places. Photographers who participate in this genre may find themselves placed in harm's way, and are sometimes killed trying to get their pictures out of the war arena.

Jill Furmanovsky is a British photographer who has specialised in documenting rock musicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spirit photography</span> Attempt to capture images of ghosts or spirits

Spirit photography is a type of photography whose primary goal is to capture images of ghosts and other spiritual entities, especially in ghost hunting. It dates back to the late 19th century. The end of the American Civil War and the mid-19th Century Spiritualism movement contributed greatly to the popularity of spirit photography. Photographers such as William Mumler and William Hope ran thriving businesses taking photos of people with their supposed dead relatives. Both were shown to be frauds, but "true believers", such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, refused to accept the evidence as proof of a hoax.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George M. Whitesides</span> American chemist

George McClelland Whitesides is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology. A prolific author and patent holder who has received many awards, he received the highest Hirsch index rating of all living chemists in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">György Kepes</span> Hungarian-American artist (1906–2001)

György Kepes was a Hungarian-born painter, photographer, designer, educator, and art theorist. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus in Chicago. In 1967 he founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences</span> Engineering school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted directly to SEAS, and to undergraduates admitted first to Harvard College. Previously the Lawrence Scientific School and then the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Paulson School assumed its current structure in 2007. Francis J. Doyle III has been its dean since 2015.

Carrie Mae Weems is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project The Kitchen Table Series. Her photographs, films and videos focus on serious issues facing African Americans today, including racism, sexism, politics and personal identity.

Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon is an American computer scientist, professor, author, and champion aerobatic pilot who is best known as the co-inventor of the treap data structure, a type of binary search tree that orders nodes by adding a priority as well as a key to each node. She is also known for her work in data-intensive science and visual analytics of very large data sets, for which she received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Hopkins (scientist)</span> American molecular biologist

Nancy Hopkins, an American molecular biologist, is the Amgen, Inc. Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is known for her research identifying genes required for zebrafish development, and for her earlier research on gene expression in the bacterial virus, lambda, and on mouse RNA tumor viruses. She is also known for her work promoting equality of opportunity for women scientists in academia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JoAnne Stubbe</span> American chemist

JoAnne Stubbe is an American chemist best known for her work on ribonucleotide reductases, for which she was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2009. In 2017, she retired as a Professor of Chemistry and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Lennart Nilsson Award recognizes outstanding contributions to scientific photography. Honorees are chosen based on the merits of their efforts in scientific imagery. It is administered by the foundation Stiftelsen Lennart Nilsson and awarded annually by Karolinska Institutet. The award sum is SEK 100,000. The award was inaugurated in 1998 in honor of Swedish photographer and scientist Lennart Nilsson (1922–2017) .

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vera Kistiakowsky</span> American physicist (1928–2021)

Vera Kistiakowsky was an American research physicist, teacher, and arms control activist. She was professor emerita at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the physics department and Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and was an activist for women's participation in the sciences. Kistiakowsky was an expert in experimental particle physics and observational astrophysics. Her hobbies included climbing mountains, and she liked to maintain an energetic and fit lifestyle. She was the first woman appointed MIT professor of physics in 1972.

Suzanne Anker is an American visual artist and theorist. Considered a pioneer in Bio Art., she has been working on the relationship of art and the biological sciences for more than twenty five years. Her practice investigates the ways in which nature is being altered in the 21st century. Concerned with genetics, climate change, species extinction and toxic degradation, her work calls attention to the beauty of life and the "necessity for enlightened thinking about nature's 'tangled bank'." Anker frequently assembles with "pre-defined and found materials" botanical specimens, medical museum artifacts, laboratory apparatus, microscopic images and geological specimens.

Lola Flash is an American photographer whose work has often focused on social, LGBT and feminist issues. An active participant in ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Flash was notably featured in the 1989 "Kissing Doesn't Kill" poster.

Barbara Pugh Norfleet is an American documentary photographer, author, curator, professor and social scientist who used photography as social documentary and allegory to examine American culture. Her photographic work is represented in museum collections around the world. She is founder and curator of a photographic archive on American social history at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katie Bouman</span> American computer scientist (born 1989)

Katherine Louise Bouman is an American engineer and computer scientist working in the field of computer imagery. She led the development of an algorithm for imaging black holes, known as Continuous High-resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors (CHIRP), and was a member of the Event Horizon Telescope team that captured the first image of a black hole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photography in Sudan</span> History of photography in Sudan

Photography in Sudan refers to both historical as well as to contemporary photographs taken in the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the former territory of present-day South Sudan, as well as what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and some of the oldest photographs from the 1860s, taken during the Turkish-Egyptian rule (Turkiyya). As in other countries, the growing importance of photography for mass media like newspapers, as well as for amateur photographers has led to a wider photographic documentation and use of photographs in Sudan during the 20th century and beyond. In the 21st century, photography in Sudan has undergone important changes, mainly due to digital photography and distribution through social media and the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Chervinsky</span> American photographer and engineer

John Chervinsky (1961–2015) was an American photographer and Harvard-based particle accelerator engineer who exhibited his photographs internationally.

References

  1. "She calls it 'phenomena.' Everyone else calls it art". New York Times. 12 June 2007. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Frankel, Felice (2018). Picturing science and engineering. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0262038553.
  3. "Felice Frankel - American Scientist". americanscientist.org. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  4. "Selected Covers – Felice Frankel". felicefrankel.com. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  5. "Selected Publications - Felice Frankel". felicefrankel.com. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  6. "Photographer has front-row seat for big scientific discoveries". Boston Globe. June 10, 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  7. "At MIT, seeing is learning as well as believing". Boston Globe. March 27, 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  8. "Picture of the Week: Ferrofluid". National Public Radio, Science Friday. June 15, 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  9. "Images in Place – Felice Frankel" . Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  10. "Design and the Elastic Mind" (PDF). moma.org. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  11. "Images of Discovery". Mit.edu. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  12. "Picturing to learn" . Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  13. "Novelist Sapphire and CNN anchor Don Lemon to speak at commencement". cuny.edu. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  14. "Felice Frankel receives highest award granted by Photographic Society of America". news.harvard.edu. 2009-12-21. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  15. "Frankel wins Lennart Nilsson Award" B. D. Colen, Harvard News Office, October 17, 2007