Ode To Kate Rubins

The work “Ode to Kate Rubins” pays homage to the astronaut microbiologist Dr. Kathleen “Kate” Rubins. Was she a microbiologist or an astronaut? She’s both! Like Kate Rubins, we as humans are as multi faceted as the galaxies themselves. Here, each planet is represented by one petri dish filled with Earth’s soil bacteria or ink. Some planet textures were made using soil bacteria antibiotic-producer Streptomyces (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune), which I learned how to better isolate after visiting with Dr. Daniel Rozen (Institute of Biology, Leiden University). All other celestial bodies were made by combining inks in “swim agar” (think JELLO but less solid) which I learned from Dr. Michael Baym (Harvard Medical School) showing me how he used ink dye in the agar in the evolution of antibiotic resistance Mega Plate experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8). In this artwork, antibiotic producing bacteria have spread to some, but not all, of the planets, representing an urgency with which we should be addressing and combating antibiotic resistance as a united, multi-faceted global effort.

This work was previously awarded an international award from the American Society for Microbiology.

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