Researcher portrait, 2010-02-04

New Media Makes Invisible Natural Sciences Visible


– Meet Lena Tibell

Lena Tibell, Associate Professor, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, has a Project Research Grant from the Swedish Research Council. Here you can read an interview with her.
"In our project we are studying how to describe things that cannot be seen with the naked eye (in our case, life processes at the molecular level) by using visualisations: two-dimensional diagrams, animation, physical models, and computer-generated virtual models. Our goal is to gain knowledge about how to use visualisations as pedagogical tools to explain phenomena that we cannot grasp directly with our senses."

"We are taking a multidisciplinary approach by combining expertise from biochemistry, media technology, topical didactics, and linguistics. We identify the critical aspects that each visualisation is intended to convey. By studying how visualisations are perceived we can then analyse the aspects that determine how the visualisations are interpreted."

"By cooperating with university education programmes (including teacher training), local schools, and Citilab in Norrköping we achieve mutual benefits: we gain access to environments where the visualisations will be used, and concurrently our research findings benefit students, teachers, and the public."

"We also collaborate with other researchers, for instance from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, Scripps Laboratories in San Diego (USA), a couple of universities in Taiwan, and the University of Nottingham in Great Britain."

How far have you come?


"We have advanced farthest on an interactive 3-dimensional computer model of a protein. Using this model we can, for example, try to dock a medication to the protein in real time and sense the forces between the two molecules."

"Among other things, we have tested what the students gain from using this docking function. We are currently studying the processes of interaction and teaching to understand the correlations between them. In particular, we are interested in the effect that the tactile aspect of the model has on understanding the process."

Why did you select this particular research topic?


"When I studied biochemistry in the early 1970s I had a teacher whose colourful illustrations and well-structured sketches on the blackboard made the complex content comprehensible, dynamic, and exciting. Then, for the first time, I realised the importance of visualisations as communicative tools."
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