Data Art

Sometimes, you come across data or math so striking it just sticks in your head. When this happens to me, I like to make stuff out of that data/math! Below are some pieces I've made out of data/math from my own research and the research of others. These span a wide range of scientific domains, from pharmacokinetics to insect ecology.

BEECH CATERPILLAR POPULATION DYNAMICS

Jewelry etched with polar or Cartesian coordinate projections of beech caterpillar population abundance time series at sites northern Japan. These communities exhibit large population booms and collapses, visible as peaks in the projections. These time series come from Kamata et al. 2020 in Population Ecology.

Medium: Brass, ferric chloride etching

Photography: Calexa Studio

CHAOTIC PHAGE-MICROBE INTERACTIONS

Jewelry etched with polar or Cartesian projections of phage and microbe abundance time series from a simulated ecosystem. This model ecosystem exhibits chaotic dynamics. These time series come from my own research.

Medium: Brass, ferric chloride etching

ECOLOGICAL INVASION BOUNDARY REMAPPING

Sculptural visualizations of ecological invasion boundary remapping in a model seasonal ecosystem. The vertical direction represents changes in absolute nutrient abundance. This data comes from my work on microbial communities in fluctuating ecosystems (Erez and Lopez et al. 2020 in eLife). For details, see Appendix 7 - Figure 5 of that manuscript.

Medium: PLA, extrusion 3D printing