Visualizing Science: When pop culture and ecology jive

Post by ​Rhiannon Jakopak

​During the first year of my master’s, I was brainstorming a title for a conference submission that would simultaneously represent my research and grab the attention of attendees. From somewhere deep in my brain space (which cannot remember the names of classes I took last semester) emerged the lyrics to an old will.i.am song.

Those who were not in high school in the late 2000s might be wondering how will.i.am fits into this picture (or, who will.i.am is). In 2007, will.i.am released a song from which I know only 2 lines: “Baby, where’d you get yo body from… I got it from my mama.” 

I didn’t end up using this gem in a title, but I knew I was onto something good.

I study mule deer migration in Wyoming. More specifically, I’m trying to identify the
mechanism through which mule deer migration is established, and I’m primarily examining whether an individual mule deer socially inherits their migratory behaviors from their mother.When it comes to migration, do mule deer get it from their mama?

I decided to build on this pop culture reference for this visualization. I wanted to make a comic that communicated the essence of my research questions for public and academic audiences. The comic didn’t need to communicate all the nuances of my research, but would hopefully be an invitation for others to chat with me.

To ensure that viewers didn’t get bogged down in details, I used simple line drawings to display the characters. I wanted to represent #WomenInSTEM, so I included a researcher with more female features. Although mule deer faces aren’t exactly conducive to sunglasses, I felt the sunglasses added a satisfying, dramatic flair. Finally, I decided to make the right panel have two almost distinct views to indicate that it was the binocular-view, even though binocular users know that you don’t see the almost separate circles when looking through binoculars.