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Two CIA biomedical majors drew honors at this summer’s National Association of Medical Illustrators Conference in Toronto.

Recent graduate Stephen Buehrer (’12) and incoming junior Emily Hromi (’14) won awards of merit competing against projects done by masters-level medical illustrators from John’s Hopkins University, the University of Toronto, the Medical College of Georgia and other highly competitive programs.

Buehrer tailored his submission from his senior thesis project, a prototype for an Apple or Android app called Entomon. It’s an entomological field guide that uses interactive methods and a variety of types of information to help users identify specimens. Buehrer’s submission was a proof-of-concept video about the app.

He grew up in Galion, Ohio, and was a winner of a 2012 prestigious President’s Traveling Scholarship at CIA. He used part of it this summer to visit natural history museums throughout the eastern United States.

Buehrer decided to study biomedical illustration because “it was rigorous, time-consuming, and nerve-wracking and I enjoyed the challenge,” he says. “Plus, I had to draw bugs and dinosaurs, and who doesn't want to do that?”

Hromi’s entry was a digitally rendered color plate of an orange cattleya orchid specimen. The illustration, which she created while still a sophomore at CIA, incorporated concepts of color theory, included several dissected sections of the flower, and was intended for the kind of scientifically interested general audience that might visit the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

She grew up in Shalersville, Ohio, and now lives in Cleveland. She has been a summer intern at the Dittrick Museum of Medical History at Case Western Reserve University, where she created illustrations and designed exhibits.

Photo credit: Emily Hromi