Every year, creative grad students from across the disciplines submit compelling images of their research and scholarship to the Image of Research competition. To accompany each image submission, the creator writes a short paragraph explaining how the image relates to their wider academic work, giving us a glimpse behind the scenes.
We caught up with some of the award winners from the 2024 Image of Research competition to ask them more about their process. Enjoy this interview with Alexandra Spitzer, a graduate student in Materials Science and Engineering and People's Choice Award winner in this year’s contest, and then view the video to hear Spitzer read her award-winning submission, "Inspired by Plants."
Why did you enter Image of Research this year?
I entered the Image of Research this year because I always admire the beautiful work done by graduate students at Illinois, and I believed that some of the images I had taken were quite beautiful as well! I think what I have found in graduate school is a deeper sense of curiosity of how the world around me works, and also a deeper sense of appreciation for the mechanisms that I am trying to understand more about. Beyond the analytical aspect of research, I enjoy sharing this sense of appreciation through an artistic outlet, and I equally enjoy seeing the inspiration and appreciation other researchers find in their work as well!
What was the process of coming up with your image?
I have had the opportunity to become very familiar with an inverted optical microscope in Professor Shelby Hutchens' Lab and have spent many hours over the past five years learning the art of optical microscopy to image these osmotic actuating devices, and mycelium samples. My image is a collection of 4 optical images taken, 2 taken from my first research project developing and studying the fluid flow properties through plant-inspired PDMS osmotically actuating devices, and 2 taken during a microscopy training session with a senior design group working in the Hutchens' lab of their mycelium samples. I always really loved these images, but never had a place for them in papers published. I thought together they created a beautiful summary of some of the work I have done, in an artistic collage, giving some of my favorite images a new life beyond an unopened folder on my desktop.
What did you learn or take away from this experience?
Through this experience, I have learned about the breadth of exciting research being conducted by graduate students at UIUC, in such a variety of fields. I have really enjoyed the process of sharing my work through an image and learning how impactful an image can be in conveying a research story. More broadly, this image has been made through a culmination of skills learned in the lab and as a microscopist over my past five years at UIUC, and I have learned how exciting and rewarding research can be and love that this process celebrates how researchers find beauty in their work.
This interview was conducted by Brandon Stauffer, Videographer here at the Graduate College. Brandon came to the Graduate College with a background in journalism and is now working to showcase the impact of Higher Education at Illinois.
