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Kevin Hussey: 'The Image Is the Message'
| Article
# : |
19935 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1992 |
3,563 Words |
| Author
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Karen E. Klein and Stephen A. Scauzillo
Karen E. Klein and Stephen A. Scauzillo are a husband-and-
wife
writing team based in southern California. They specialize
in
environmental and science topics. |
The four-inch stack of computer paper hit the scientific community with a deadening thud-dense, gray, and inaccessible.
Four years of research on global temperature mapping just sat there, even though the research had been done by none other than the science division chief at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
It was solid data, with important findings. But the research was so complex, and the figures so esoteric, it had attracted little notice in the arena of atmospherics, let alone among the general public.
Enter Kevin Hussey. At age 26, he had just completed graduate school and toiled through a JPL internship doing tedious digital mapping of the California desert. Despite his youth and lack of credentials, he thought he could unmask the importance of the temperature data and bring it some deserved recognition.
"I can make a map for you--a color map," he told the atmospheric scientist responsible for the work. In his head, he could see a snapshot of the earth's skin from outer space: The reds would be the warm climes centered around the equator. Blues and purples would represent the cooler lands and the icy poles.
A map drawn out of reams of numbers? In 1981, Hussey's idea bordered on the absurd. But he made his map--and his mark.
The result, a computer-assisted portrait of the earth's surface temperature--made history. It has become a standard for textbooks and appeared on the cover of nearly 30 magazines and scientific journals around the world.
During the 10 years since he created that first picture, Hussey's ability to breathe life into scientific data, transforming it into detailed pictures and motion pictures, has revolutionized man's understanding of science, influenced international policy, and set off an explosion of interest in his work from astronomers to Hollywood moguls to crime-scene investigators.
Hussey's work takes the numbers, figures, calculations, and conclusions of scientists from a number of disciplines and translates them into colorful, easy-to-understand visuals that have application for scientists, policy makers, and the general public.
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