Maria Yolanda Nunez Medina is a marine biologist and scientific illustrator from Chile. She holds a bachelors in marine biology from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with a strong background in ecology. Since graduating, she has further specialized her education by achieving certificates in ‘Risks Associated with Extreme Oceanographic Events’ and ‘Naturalistic Illustration & Scientific Outreach’.
She currently works as a scientific illustrator and science communicator, collaborating with international research teams to visualize complex data on paleoceanography, marine microbiology, and climate change.One of her main goals as a science illustrator is to bridge the gap between rigorous science and public understanding through visual storytelling, and by teaching scientific illustration workshops to foster more interdisciplinary learning.
For her outreach project, Maria Yolanda collaborated with a researcher to create an illustrated infographic (left) focused on the ecophysiology of high-latitude marine species. The infographic visually explains how organisms such as sea snails, crustaceans, and fish respond to environmental changes. This outreach project simplifies complex concepts like adaptation versus acclimatization and illustrates the scientific method, guiding readers from field sample collection to laboratory analysis at the cellular and organ levels, and presenting some of the results, with the goal to make marine science more engaging through accurate visual storytelling, and more accesible by creating her infographic in both spanish and english.
To see more science illustration work from Maria Yolanda, you can visit her website here!
