PNNL

It's not often you see a Ferris wheel at a meeting of scientists. Or even a drawing of one.

But Jason McDermott's poster at this week's meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association features not only a Ferris wheel but a robot, fireworks, a roller coaster, and other features of an amusement park. The cartoon presentation — about big data — is a big departure from conventional presentations at scientific meetings.

McDermott, who regularly draws cartoons about the culture of science as @RedPenBlackPen, says his poster is about building a "new, open access educational ecosystem."

His own big-data forays at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory regularly take him to the frontiers of ovarian cancer, cyanobacteria, and some powerful pathogens.

An explanation of McDermott's cartoon presentation can be found in this article.