Session 7: The Future of BVIS Panel Talk

Christine Armstrong
Christine Armstrong is the Director of Patient & Digital Marketing at Pharmacyclics, an ABBVIE company, where she brings over 30 years of healthcare communication experience to serve patients with rare blood cancers and the healthcare professionals who treat them. Prior to this role, she has spent time launching a stealth Stanford-led startup in Menlo Park focused on a multi-omic + AI approach to precision health. Before that, she has been a strategic executive and creative leader within several healthcare communication agencies, in NYC and San Francisco that developed medical visualizations to educate about specific diseases and the therapies that treat them. Prior to her agency work, she was the Chief Medical Illustrator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, responsible for all medical communications for physicians, researchers, nurses, and patient educators. Attended over 600 surgeries, working side by side surgical and research teams to communicate complex ideas in Oncology. Christine received her Master of Science in Biomedical Communication in 1992 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she now teaches Design as applied to healthcare, and a Bachelor of Art from Parsons School of Design. She’s been a creative collaborator with such prestigious groups as TEDMED, CNN, and a new initiative with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, called Life Itself. Christine has won numerous awards for her work in marketing, creative visualization, and leadership, and lectures on a variety of topics as it pertains to the healthcare industry.

Marcelo Oliver
Marcelo Oliver is owner and president of Body Scientific International. He graduated from from University of Michigan in 1992. Over the past nearly 30 years he illustrated, art directed and help design many medical education visuals used to educate patients, students and medical professionals. Body Scientific is published in over 100 textbooks and is an international company doing business in Asia, South America, Middle East and Europe. Marcelo serves on the Association of Medical Illustrators Board of Governors as Treasurer and is also part of the Advisory Committee for University of Illinois at Chicago’s Master of Science in Biomedical visualization.

Jacqueline Mason
After completing studies in computer graphics and biology, Jacqueline received her M.Ed. in Technology, Innovation, and Education from Harvard University and her M.S. in Biomedical Visualization at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has passionately focused her career around leveraging interactive technologies and visuals to improve science and medical education. Jacqueline has experience developing artwork and leading the design for educational products ranging from short-duration mobile games to VR simulations. She is currently a 3D medical artist for OssoVR.

David W. Ehlert, MAMS CMI FAMI
David is a Co-founder and Director of Science Storytelling at Cognition Studio, Inc. in Seattle, WA. His aim is honing compelling approaches to communicate complex science through narratives that resonate, educate, and entertain for increased retention and knowledge transfer. His core belief: Discovery, discovery, discovery. This means asking relevant questions to understand a process. David engages in science and technology, welcoming the deep dives and collaborative efforts required at the C-suite level to strategically craft a client’s message to become as novel, captivating, and informative as their science and scientists are.

Kristine Johnson
Kristine is the Co-founder and Chief Design Strategist at Cognition Studio, Inc. She received her MAMS from UIC in 1998 and pursued several years of post-graduate work in visual communication design. Over the past 20 years, she has shaped and honed the application of design strategy as applied to biopharma products and services, including the critical communication of complex upstream technologies and disruptive innovations. She leads teams that utilize a user-centered design approach to build knowledge for some of the world’s most pressing issues in global health, oncology, infectious disease, and health equity. Her team focuses on information dissemination for public health policy, patient behavior change, and creating a more equitable healthcare landscape through storytelling. She remains a practicing designer and contributes to thought leadership and mentorship of youth entering the creative field to encourage diversity in visual communications and the creative workforce.