Hi! I’m Kathy Vo and I’m a rising sophomore pursuing a dual major in biological sciences and studio arts. I enjoy biking with my family, going on fun adventures with my friends, and making and eating food! I also like any Nat Geo Wild show that David Attenborough narrates (I highly recommend “Our Planet” on Netflix).

My project for this fellowship combines science with the arts: more specifically, how I can capture the necessity of maintaining natural biocycles through multimedia sculpture. Biocycles refer to the relationships between organisms and their environment, and the energy flow between them that is essential to maintaining a stable ecosystem. Unfortunately, humans and our drive to make life more convenient for ourselves have disturbed these cycles. Pesticides, for example, get rid of those pesky bugs that keep eating your flowers with just one spray, but what about the “good” bugs that your flowers rely on for pollination? Where does the pesticide go after it rains? While it’s easy to choose short-term solutions for our comfort, we should be careful when trading the well-being of the planet for our convenience. A solution that I’m interested in is biocontrol, like introducing native plants that repel pests to offset damage without harming the ecosystem. Although they take more effort than buying a bottle of pesticide, my goal for this project is to show the beauty of using what is already in our environment to act as natural repellants. I plan on exploring the interactions among insects and their habitats at the Phipps Conservatory, and imaging certain characteristics of a plant or bug that help regulate their ecosystem. I will image insect and plant samples with a scanning electron microscope and incorporate them into a multimedia sculpture. In the spirit of sustainability, I am also using found objects from my recycling bin and the Center for Creative Reuse to build my sculpture. My plan is to sculpt a cyclical rendering that has wire or string holding each of the parts of the structure together, to show how bugs, plants, and waterways interact to hold an ecosystem together and keep these cycles moving seamlessly. Though the declining health of our planet is well-documented in terms of stats and articles, I feel that translating these facts into visual form is more effective at voicing the need to care for the environment and learning to enjoy the little inconveniences that come with it. In the same way that there are no shortcuts in creating art, there are no shortcuts when it comes to the health of our environment.

My mentors are Dr. Donna Stolz, an optical and electron microscopist at UPMC’s Center for Biologic Imaging; Omid Shekari, my painting studio 1 professor; and Braley Burke, a professional Integrated Pest Management specialist at Phipps. I’m so grateful for their guidance, and very excited to work with all of them this summer!

As for my future endeavors, I hope to continue exploring more ways to narrate science through artistic mediums, whether that be crafting another environmentally-driven sculpture or doodling a cellular process in my class notes to better grasp it. I’m really interested in learning about the incredible ways others have continued creating in STEM fields, but I would love to find new ways to merge art and biology, as well. This fellowship is not only a wonderful chance for me to explore interdisciplinary work between my majors, but also for me to have fun. I’m not sure what I imagine a career of combining biology and art might look like, but I’m trying to let go of planning out everything and just seeing what I can make! One of my fellows has insightfully said to not analyze before you create, and this project is one of those opportunities to do so.