Art of Science 2020 Winners Announced

With her microscopic image of a spider’s spinnerets, silk-spinning organs, Tricia Meredith, Ph.D., assistant research professor in the College of Education, took first place in the 2020 Art of Science photography contest, hosted by FAU’s Division of Research.

Thirteen judges from across the university chose Meredith’s winning photograph from more than 150 submissions. The next phase of voting is in your hands. Voting for the 2020 Art of Science People’s Choice award is now open online, here.

This is the second year of the popular contest, which aims to highlight the cutting-edge research being conducted across all colleges, while engaging and educating others in all the unique research, scholarship and creative activities taking place in the field, in the lab and across all disciplines at FAU.

Behind this year’s top winning photograph is a partnership with the Karen Slattery Educational Research Center for Child Development on the Boca Raton campus, Meredith said. She is the director of research and principle investigator for the FAU High School imaging lab. “The lab is a collaborative research hub that provides mentorship for students,” she said. Imaging lab technicians scanned the spider in the garden habitat of the voluntary prekindergarten class so the children could discover there is more to the harmless spiny orb-weaver spider than just its scary-looking exterior.

“The detail and colors really make the image stand out,” said Susannah Brown, Ph.D., associate professor, College of Education, and one of this year’s judges.