About Chinami Michaels

I'm a medical illustrator, biomedical visualization communicator, and Medical Video Editor & Multimedia Specialist at Barrow Neurological Institute. I'm living my dream of using science and art everyday to help patients access medical information and disseminate groundbreaking research through editing videos of brain surgeries and designing multimedia, within a rare gem known as the Neuroscience Publications department.

I love research and creative ideas. I love my current workplace because I'm fast at understanding biomedical researchers' passions and identifying their communication pain points -- thanks to my biology training, a B.S. in Biology from Tufts University, my graduate training in biomedical communication, through a MS in Biomedical Visualization from University of Illinois at Chicago, and my insatiable curiosity. I'm happiest concepting accurate, engaging, data-driven research stories into designs for fearless but thoughtful visuals that disseminate innovative ideas across digital, print, interactive, and video media. Being inquisitive, I enjoy puzzling out design solutions for storyboarding, asset design, 3D animation, and interactives that translate clients' briefs to designs that will meet the production constraints of the creative team's media and still thrill the client!

My enthusiasm for research and new ideas means I naturally have great rapport with researchers, engineers and key opinion leaders in technical fields. I'm fast at identifying and understanding, the complicated pain points of clients at the intersections of research, healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical devices, and biotechnology. This means I can ensure that the needs of the key opinion leaders are clearly communicated.

Professionally, I enjoy working with academics on interactive Virtual Reality applications, 3D molecular animations, and science outreach projects.

What is my favorite subject to illustrate?

Molecular visualizations and synthetic biology. I'm intensely curious and analytical, so to me, reading the primary literature is a thrilling way to get as close as possible -- outside of the lab-- to new molecular discoveries. Visualizing the molecular process is an addicting puzzle and makes me engage with the subject and researchers in a new way.