source: Print and web. Vanderbilt University 2014 (news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/05/06/research-shaping-undergraduate-experience/)

"Desiré Hough, a senior studio art major from Bethlehem, Pa., is proof that scientific pursuit can inspire creative output, sometimes in surprising ways. She spent three years as a research assistant in Associate Professor of Medicine Jay Fowke’s lab, where she processed patient samples as part of a long-term study looking at how diet and obesity may affect prostate cancer risk.

The patient samples were anonymous, but after many hours spent working with them, Hough began to imagine the people they represented. Using objects found in the lab and materials such as clay and expandable urethane foam, she created sculpture depicting her idea of these patients in various states of repose. She called the collection Where the Samples Sleep.

“When I rearranged the figures into a vial tray, I saw a crowd, which intrigued me to further study collective energy: the power of a collection of samples vs. just one sample—how 15 years of research can tell you something that one sample alone cannot,” she said. “This idea grew into my senior project, Crowd Effervescence, where the energy of a gathering of people is depicted through a crowd-sized sculpture.”

For Hough, the creative process was sparked at the intersection of science and art. “Everything that’s created has roots in imagination,” she said.

“Scientific research begins with observation, then you use a little imagination to come up with your hypothesis. Art is a similar process, just more open-ended.”