Designer Bio
Julia Felice, Ph.D. is a trained scientist and experienced communicator and designer with 20 years of experience.
Her scientific expertise, focused on biological and quantitative sciences, comes from doctoral work at Cornell University and undergraduate training at MIT. She has published and presented original research in a number of peer-reviewed journals and international conferences as well as to a range of expert and non-expert audiences.
As an expert communicator and designer, Dr. Felice has taught, trained, and mentored learners in professional, higher education, and public school settings. She is enthusiastic about facilitating constructive engagement with important science, and applies well-tested skills in multi-platform STEM communication, instructional design, organizational and systems thinking, and dialogue.
Felice Information Design is a culmination of my lifelong passion for combining information with design to inspire learning in myself and others.
I sat on the floor of my first-grade class coatroom, arranging cut pieces of paper to help a classmate understand fractions. For my undergraduate physics problem sets, I spent as much time on the pen-and-ink line drawings that helped me to clarify and convey my thinking as I did on the problems themselves. My high school geometry students learned about tessellation by creating stained glass art that hung in our windows.
As my professional career grew and diversified into professional science, scientific writing, research mentorship, and program leadership, the impact of high-quality visual communication on my success - and that of my peers and colleagues - was undeniable.
In front of Martha Van Rensselaer Hall on the Cornell campus, 2020. Cornell University file photo.
When it comes to complex information, experience and evidence show me that seeing is understanding.
I hadn’t heard the term “information design” until well into my professional career, yet I had been using it all along as an essential tool for communicating and collaborating across fields, audiences, and contexts.
I have seen time and again how an engaging, intentional figure yields faster, deeper, more nuanced, and more equitable learning, how a clear data visualization can quickly focus a busy committee, and how the polish of manuscript’s figures quietly impact even the most objective reader.
In the words of a faculty client, “The packaging really matters.”
I created Felice Information Design to harness the power of evidence-based, audience-centered design to amplify the impact of important science.
My clients have important ideas that need to be heard, understood, and valued by those that can act on them. I focus on partnering with researchers, innovators, and policymakers whose work aims to promote human health and well-being and has the potential for meaningful impact. I particularly prioritize projects that further diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice within scientific practices and impacts.