Design Science Collaboration

Richard Perry/The New York Times

The Design Science Collaboration (a student organization at the University of Texas at Austin) has introduced collaborative communication between segregated disciplines on campus. Inspired by the initiatives of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit, students from the College of Natural Sciences, Fine Arts, Design, Engineering and the Computer Sciences attend meetings to engage in facilitated discussions, lectures, and projects exploring interdisciplinary solutions to dynamic problems (often sustainability issues). After receiving funding from the UT Coop this fall, DSC plans to embark on a project headed by myself and Ayham Grahowi to explore the concept of flux, hoping to visualize how influx of molecular processes contribute to the flow and fluctuation of mundane daily activity. The project seeks to explore this world using methods of 3D visualization software and the production of physical objects to illuminate the the equipotential surface of the intricately complex universe of molecular flux. If all goes well, the project should be completed and exhibited in May.

Flux: Sodium Ion channel models as catalysts of action potentials responsible for inter-neuron communication. Channels open and close according to the flux of sodium ions entering and leaving the cellular membrane.