Melinda Barnadas is an interdisciplinary visual artist and educator with an insatiable curiosity; a love of wonderment; and a desire to facilitate learning through creation. Her art and science relationship began as an intern in research at The Field Museum of Natural History while studying for her BFA at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1997. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts with a Public Culture focus from UCSD and is the founder and current director of Magpie Studio, fabrication for Art & Science which has produced scientific illustrations and models for many museums and independent research projects around the world. She has also instructed courses with Sally Ride Junior Academy since 2017.