{"id":11251,"date":"2021-08-18T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artthescience.com\/magazine\/?p=11251"},"modified":"2022-07-18T21:58:20","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T01:58:20","slug":"features-scientific-visualization-with-shehryar-saharan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artthescience.com\/magazine\/2021\/08\/18\/features-scientific-visualization-with-shehryar-saharan\/","title":{"rendered":"FEATURES \u2013 Scientific Visualization with Shehryar Saharan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to the field the world doesn\u2019t know it needs<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Imagine, if you will, a humungous jumble of puzzle pieces. There are no corners in sight, you don’t know how many you\u2019re supposed to have, plus, you\u2019re missing the picture on the box, so you can\u2019t even tell what\u2019s meant to emerge from this chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter Shehryar (\u201cShay\u201d) Saharan<\/a>. Not only will he solve the puzzle for you, but he\u2019ll make it look easy. Saharan is a scientific visualizer and illustrator, which means he uses art and design to render the complex understandable for a casual audience. Under his eye, reams of data become one aesthetic graphic, a mess of blood and bone becomes a streamlined diagram, and an overwhelming global phenomenon becomes digestible in eight neat panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/a>
Did COVID-19 come from bats?<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a>
Lumbar Spine & Sacrum<\/em> (2021) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Illustrator, carbon dust<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Saharan is currently in the University of Toronto\u2019s Master of Science in Biomedical Communications<\/a> (\u201cBMC\u201d) program. For one of his assignments, he completed a two-page spread that explained the fundamentals of orangutan biology and why their population is declining so quickly. Working with the president of The Orangutan Project<\/a>, Leif Cocks, Saharan created a visual that shows how palm oil, found in over half the products in our supermarkets, directly contributes to the rapid deforestation of orangutan habitats. Which upsets Saharan for personal as well as environmental reasons. \u201cI love that animal,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s my favourite animal!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This BMC program is one of only four accredited programs of its kind worldwide. When I ask Saharan why he thinks that is, he frowns, reflecting. \u201cI’m actually not sure because there’s so much work to be honest,\u201d he says. \u201cOne of the reasons might be that people still don’t know they need us, in a lot of ways. And I’m not quite sure why that is either.\u201d Saharan estimates there are, globally, a mere one thousand practising professional scientific visualizers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the field is inarguably important with its capacity to present accessibly research that people might otherwise consider beyond their reach. \u201cIt is so essential for things to be presented in a way where it’s not this kind of elite,\u201d Saharan says. \u201cIf you if you want it to be accessible, it can be accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustrations<\/a>
The Most Endangered Great Ape<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Illustrator, Tableau, carbon dust<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a>
Work in progress, The Most Endangered Great Ape<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a>
Work in progress, The Most Endangered Great Ape<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And, evidently, people do. Though they are still students, Saharan and his cohort are being offered more work than they can accept. Saharan tells me he has \u201cnever had to not<\/em> apply for a job\u2026people are wanting to work with us left and right!\u201d Saharan accepts freelance projects and also takes part in a Clinical Education and Biomedical Communications Co-op program at Baylis Medical<\/a> in Mississauga, Ontario. The company develops and distributes medical products and recruited Saharan to pioneer an interactive education program for their sales team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we discuss Saharan\u2019s hyper-detailed anatomical illustration of a skull, I ask him what he used for reference. \u201cSo, we had skulls mailed to us,\u201d he says, nonchalantly. He adds quickly, perhaps in response to my expression, \u201cBut they were plastic skulls though, not human specimens!\u201d He also consulted anatomical atlases and photographs. He estimates the project took him twenty to thirty hours to finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Inferior View of the Skull<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Illustrator, carbon dust<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another of Saharan\u2019s visualizations explored global mother mortality rates and the factors that contribute to these deaths. Saharan combed through tangles of data and realized that, to communicate his findings the way he wanted to, he would have to invent a completely new kind of graph. He created a \u201cBubble Chart,\u201d which shows through size, opacity, and positioning of the bubbles how access to quality healthcare and income level affect the likelihood that a mother and her baby will survive childbirth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because no software exists for creating this novel graph, the work took a long time\u2014two weeks, if he had worked eight straight hours a day, Saharan estimates. He used Tableau<\/a> for the main framework but had to add details by hand. \u201cI sat down for like eight hours adding dots to each bubble. It\u2019s all manual. And changing the opacity was all manual, and I had to do that for each continent. It\u2019s so specific that nothing out there exists,\u201d he tells me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Saharan explains the process of creating such a visualization, he refers to amalgamating mountains of data into a layout as \u201cthe fun part,\u201d which, in my opinion, proves he has chosen the correct field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like solving a mystery,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt’s shuffling things around. The layout is like a puzzle, and you’re just putting it together in a way that\u2019s like, okay, this is where everything fits. This is where it makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mother Mortality<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Illustrator, Tableau
See full sized detailed image here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Work in progress, Mother Mortality<\/em> (2020) by Shehryar Saharan
See full sized detailed image here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

He likes to follow a similar framework for every project, which always starts with a load of research and, as he puts it, \u201cunderstanding the science, which sometimes hurts me inside because I want to just jump in.\u201d But he pushes through the pain to get to the point where he can explain the concept to someone else (sometimes his little brother, who is in grade 10). \u201c[Without that] I don’t think your strategies for how you break it down and make it digestible will be as effective as possible,\u201d he says. This stage also involves \u201cdata cleaning,\u201d or refining your data sets to make sure no variables are missing or irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step is gauging what resources, like graphics and animations, about the subject already exist. Saharan likes to create mood boards for his pieces to evaluate upon what he can build. He ruminates on what story he needs to tell to best communicate the information\u2014what is the scope of this content? What will the focus be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
BACT-UP – Data Storage in Bacterial DNA (Mock Nature Cover)<\/em> (2021) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Maya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a>
Proximal Humeral Fracture Repair<\/em> (2021) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Illustrator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the next part is definitely sketching like crazy,\u201d he tells me. \u201cJust any idea that comes to mind will go down on paper, and I never stop at the first composition.\u201d Saharan sketches by hand and sometimes does \u201ccarbon dusting,\u201d drawing using scraped carbon collected in a petri dish. He’ll then use software like Tableau, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator for the final product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saharan usually completes at least 10 different layouts before deciding, with input from relevant experts, on the winner. He admits it feels a bit bizarre to be left with two pages after weeks and weeks of work. But, he stresses, that\u2019s an indication he\u2019s made a good design. A viewer should see it and go, \u201c\u2018Wow, that’s so simple. I understand that!\u2019 And that’s the beauty of it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you happen to be considering scientific visualization as a career path and have any doubts about it, Saharan would like to squash them. \u201cThere\u2019s so many fields you can work in, and the industry is limitless, and you\u2019re still needed everywhere,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd don\u2019t be afraid to just jump in, and it\u2019s awesome, and I love it. That\u2019s important! It\u2019s the best thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
The Parkinsonian Street Drug<\/em> (2021) by Shehryar Saharan, Photoshop, Illustrator, MagicaVoxel, Maya
This image includes animated GIFs, which you can see in Saharan’s portfolio<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Find out more about Saharan on his website<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*
All images courtesy of the artist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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