Wake Forest Baptist Researcher Wins Science Communication Prize
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Dwayne W. Godwin, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, has won an international competition created by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Science magazine.
Godwin and illustrator Jorge Cham, Ph.D., placed first in the informational graphics category of the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge with their entry titled “Brain Development.” The objective of the challenge is to better communicate science, engineering and technology for education and journalistic purposes. The winning entry is published with an accompanying story in Science magazine. Godwin and Cham also publish their work as a regular feature in the magazine Scientific American Mind, available at major bookstores and online.
Godwin said they were excited to be recognized. They used a comic format as a means of telling a story about brain science, allowing for the use of rich symbolic language and even some humor. "The human brain is one of the most complicated arrangements of matter in the universe, and it's an exciting challenge to make it more accessible to a general audience through this medium," Godwin said.
“Stories about brain science are compelling precisely because they are about who we are as individuals,” Godwin said. “By pairing words and pictures, we hope to tell these stories in an approachable way that will allow new audiences to understand the brain and share the sense of wonder I feel as a researcher every day.”
NSF and Science magazine selected winners in five categories: photographs, illustrations, informational graphics, interactive media and non-interactive media.
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