anclgu[at]umich[dot]edu
Anna CLEMENCIA Guerrero
Research Fellow | School of Information | University of Michigan
I use my expertise in biology, history and philosophy, scientific illustration, and computer science to study the relationship between scientific images and knowledge. The images scientists make (illustrations, diagrams, simulations, photographs, photomicrographs) represent a set of choices shaped by prior knowledge, cultural conventions, and the specific problems scientists are trying to solve. All scientific images are designed. I can tell you why scientists made the design choices they did, and how those choices constrain (not necessarily in a bad way!) future science.
By showing today’s scientists how their choices are constrained by past designs, and helping scientists make different and better decisions, I aim to hasten scientific progress.
Starting 2026, supported by Schmidt Sciences' Humanities and AI Virtual Institute, I will be a Research Fellow at the University of Michigan in the School of Information.
Prior to that, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute supported by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Fellowship in Understanding Dynamic and Multi-scale Systems.
I've been lucky to spend a lot of time at the Marine Biological Laboratory, in 2025 with a Whitman Fellowship, and during graduate school as a Research Assistant.
During graduate school, I also held the inaugural Jacques Barzun Fellowship for Collections and Programming in the History of Biology at the American Philosophical Society.
I received my PhD in Biology in 2023 from the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University with support from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (in history and philosophy of science).
In 2017, I received a BS in Microbiology from Arizona State University.
As an undergraduate, I completed an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program at the Harvard Forest.