{"id":15425,"date":"2017-06-01T00:20:45","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T00:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2017\/05\/31\/merging-biology-and-art-gives-amy-yeager-a-rare-body-of-work\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T09:54:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:54:39","slug":"merging-biology-and-art-gives-amy-yeager-a-rare-body-of-work","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2017\/05\/31\/merging-biology-and-art-gives-amy-yeager-a-rare-body-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Merging biology and art gives Amy Yeager a rare body of work"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After living in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Romania and Senegal, where she attended small international schools, Amy Yeager ’17 thought Clark University might be a good fit.<\/p>\n

“Clark was small with a significant international community, so I thought the transition wouldn’t be so difficult,” she says. “When I got my acceptance letter, I just had a feeling Clark was right for me.”<\/p>\n

\"Dissection\" by Amy Teager
Detail from “Dissection,” by Amy Yeager ’17<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, having graduated this May, she’s even more convinced. Clark, she says, allowed her the freedom to design her own major<\/a> in scientific illustration.<\/p>\n

“In the spring of my sophomore year, I took a comparative anatomy class. It was during the cat dissection, while wrist deep in viscera, that I thought, ‘This is neat to do, but it would be even cooler to draw,’ ” she says. “At that point, I had already declared scientific illustration as my major, but it was a moment that confirmed I was doing the right thing.”<\/p>\n

Getting to that point, you might say, was also a self-designed journey. Yeager started at Clark with a desire to study psychology<\/a>. She then switched to biology<\/a>, but she still hadn’t found her niche.<\/p>\n

“I scoured Clark’s website, and the words ‘student-designed major’ caught my attention almost immediately,” she says.<\/p>\n

With the guidance of her parents and her advising committee – professors Patrick Derr<\/a> of Philosophy<\/a>, David Hibbett<\/a> of Biology<\/a> and Elli Crocker<\/a> of Studio Art<\/a> – she proposed a self-designed major in scientific illustration to Kevin McKenna, senior associate dean of the college and director of academic advising.<\/p>\n

“I designed the major as preparation for a career illustrating natural subjects through the integration of biology and studio art,” she says. “It contained introductory classes in each discipline before branching into higher-level courses. A required third perspective, ‘Topics in Disease and Medicine,’ increased the scope and application of the degree.”<\/p>\n

Hibbett connected Yeager with opportunities to demonstrate what she had learned in coursework. She illustrated fungi for an exhibit at the EcoTarium<\/a> museum in Worcester. And over two summers, she worked in Hibbett’s lab to illustrate a poster about fungal convergent evolution, or how fungi that are not closely related evolved and developed similar traits (during the second summer, she received funding from the Biology Department’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience, or SURE, program). She and Hibbett hope to distribute the poster to local high school biology classrooms.<\/p>\n

“At Clark, I was able to be a scientific illustrator, an artist, a set designer, a curator, and a teacher as a peer learning assistant. My experiences and education have been diverse, interesting, and incredibly valuable.”<\/p>\n