Hi, I’m Kathryn. I’m a writer, scientist and illustrator.

My journey into science was through art. In my first year at Falmouth College of Arts, I found inspiration in the biology textbooks in the art school library. These books led me to make a series of Cell Paintings inspired by the brightly-coloured microscopy images. The images fascinated me, yet the feeling of not understanding what I was painting stayed with me, leading me to further study in biology after graduating from my Fine Art degree. Before long I was studying for a second undergraduate degree, this time in Molecular Cell Biology, and PhD at UCL.

There is a Philosopher of Science whose name I’ll write here when I remember it, who famously said, “Can I spray it?” when deciding whether or not something was real. So many scientific concepts are unable to be seen with our eyes and instead must be accepted on faith. For me, I asked, “Can I make it?” The way that my artist’s brain wants to understand the world is to draw it. This helped me to understand complicated concepts as I was studying and later ask questions in my own scientific research - if I was going to draw or make the system myself, what information was I missing?

I worked as an academic for more than 10 years, rising through the ranks of post-doc to Senior Lecturer in the fields of cardiovascular, renal and neuroendocrinology. Although these areas might appear diverse, in each I worked on different intracellular signalling pathways, using high content imaging to understand how cells sense information in their environment and use it to make decisions — to grow, to move, to survive or even to die. Later, in the Biotech industry, I led a team building complex models of the kidney for pharmaceutical clients to test their new medicines in.

I love writing and making connections, and through all my scientific work I have always kept up with science communication and public engagement activities, using art and writing as a means by which to talk about science. Much of my writing is centred on synthetic and engineering biology, how it seeks to modularise biology into a parts box that can be assembled in different ways, which you can read about in my blog.