Sneaking in the Science
Alums' Exhibitions Create a Big Bang
By Jessica Ullian
Shelley Kobrenski (COM'97), Andrew Wilson (COM'97), and Maggie Villiger (COM'00) at the studios of Chedd-Angier-Lewis, a science and technology media production company in Watertown, Massachusetts, where they work. Photograph by Vernon Doucette
On a Friday afternoon near Boston, Andrew Wilson is trying to spread disease and Shelley Kobrenski is trying — and failing — to stop him.
The two are playing "Protected vs. Infected," a video game that pits a macrophage (or "good" cell) against invading bacteria. In this round of the game, the bacteria win easily, but it's not because of lack of skill on the player's part - the game, which is ultimately destined for the Newark Museum in New Jersey, is designed to give the bacteria an advantage, just as actual bacteria have in the human body.
"We've spent the last nine months learning about what infectious disease can do to you," Wilson (COM'97) says. "I think we've come up with something fun."
Blending science and technology with excitement and entertainment is part of the job at Chedd-Angier-Lewis, a science and technology media production company in Watertown, Massachusetts, where Kobrenski (COM'97), Wilson, and Maggie Villiger (COM'00) work. The company's broadcast division produced the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers, hosted by Alan Alda, for thirteen years in addition to other science documentaries, and the museum division has created more than 1,000 individual multimedia exhibitions for museums around the world.
For the job they've visited mountaintops in Chile to examine the Big Bang theory of the universe, created medical history-themed pinball games, recruited the band They Might Be Giants for a music video about blood for the Franklin Institute, and discovered the key to educating people about cutting-edge science and multimedia technology — "Report some kind of scientific fact," says Wilson, a graduate of the science journalism master's program, "without letting people actually realize they're learning something."
Body Wars, which opened at the Newark Museum last fall, demonstrates the challenge of a typical Chedd-Angier-Lewis project; the museum approached the company last year with an idea for an interactive exhibition that would educate young viewers about hepatitis C, HIV, tuberculosis, aspergillus, and malaria. Months of research and design yielded a multipart exhibition that incorporates the solemn (video interviews with teenagers about the risks of AIDS and HIV) and the screwball (the requested two-player video game, in which the macrophage and the bacteria appear as World War II-era fighters). Kobrenski, who received an M.S. in mass communication at the College of Communication, says it was one of her favorite museum-development assignments. "The content was really fun," she says, "and they gave us a lot of freedom."
The company's broadcast division has different production goals, but maintains a similar perspective on making science accessible to the masses. Villiger, who also earned a master's in science journalism from BU, says her primary challenge as a producer is finding something that the audience isn't "super-saturated in already, but if they thought about it they'd have reason to be interested." She points to "Hot Times in Alaska," an episode of Scientific American Frontiers that explores the effects of climate change on the Alaskan landscape, as an example: "It was just so obvious that the story we were telling was important for people to know about."
Chedd-Angier-Lewis typically takes on two or three new museum projects each year, giving the staffers ample opportunity to test out technology or delve into the latest research. Projects for the coming year include a piece about a dolphin-human interaction facility in Florida and an exhibition for the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, which will focus on four subject areas: communication, skyscrapers, the Hudson Valley environment, and of course, infectious disease. The video-game component has not been determined — yet.
"The exhibits that are sort of whimsical in their approach — the ones that aren't afraid to be fun and a little bit silly," Wilson says, "tend to be the best."