About
Hi! I’m Rick Simonson
I grew up on a farm in central Minnesota. I moved to Nebraska for graduate school and have lived in Nebraska ever since, except for a few months when I worked as a molecular biologist in North Dakota. I spent over 23 years working in academia as a Biology Senior Lecturer. I taught lecture and lab courses in a very wide range of biology subjects. I taught undergraduate and graduate courses in scientific illustration both in-person and online. I was involved in cellular and molecular biology and ecology research, grant writing, and leading student trips to Costa Rica, Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands.
While I enjoyed being a biologist, after a while I decided I needed something different. I have always loved drawing. After a lot of searching for the right career path, I discovered scientific illustration. I have always loved both science and art. This is the perfect career for me. I worked as a biologist and a scientific illustrator for many years but eventually decided to leave academia to pursue my business.
I serve full-time as President and Visual Science Communicator at Science Lab Studios, Inc. I am directly involved in every project. At this point, I handle many projects entirely myself. For larger projects, I have a small team of creative professionals that work with me.
Science Lab Studios was created as a result of my obsession with the intersection of science and art and to fulfill a need in the marketplace.
Emerging from the science lab…
Science Lab Studios has its roots in the science laboratory. It began out of a need to provide creative services for academic researchers and educators. We work with people in the science community and we’ve expanded to provide services for business, technology, publishing, outreach, marketing, and related industries. We love collaborating with people to visually communicate their work.
If you're not using visualizations in your science, you should be.
“The use of striking images to accompany manuscripts and outreach efforts is growing as more journal publishers are requiring graphical abstracts — depictions of a paper’s main thrust or concept — to accompany studies.”
Madhusoodanan, J. Science illustration: Picture perfect. Nature 534, 285–287 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7606-285a
Science Lab Studios is here to help you visually communicate your work. Effective visualizations clarify and communicate. They can be game changing for funding proposals and grant applications. Using images to communicate your work increases your visibility and attracts a much larger audience.
Finding the right creative team can be challenging. We’re here to simplify it.
We have decades of experience in science communication, research, and education.
This separates us from other companies in this industry.
There is a real need for a business that possesses the artistic skill and the scientific knowledge and experience to provide effective methods of scientific visualization. It is often difficult to find an artist who is also proficient in the laboratory. If you are working in the scientific or technical industries, you shouldn’t have to waste valuable time teaching your illustrator the basic concepts. You need someone who already has a good understanding of science and technology. Someone who has not only performed research in the lab and field but is proficient at it.
Where are we?
Science Lab Studios is located in the middle of the United States in Kearney, Nebraska.
Where are we going next?
We are actively developing new products and services to help our clients communicate their work in the most dynamic and effective ways. We will be expanding our services more into 2D and 3D animation in the near future.
Let’s work together…
Contact us for a free consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!