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Senior scientist Anju Sharma took first prize in the Visualizing the Unseen category and Best in Show at this year’s Art of Science competition for her artwork detailing the intricate arches and cavities inside a conch shell.

Sharma, who works at the S3IP Center of Excellence, accomplished this without so much as chipping or slicing the shell. Instead, she used a machine called the Xradia Versa 620 X-ray microscope, located in the Analytical & Diagnostics Laboratory. Beaming X-rays through a sample on a rotating stage, the microscope takes more than a thousand images, which are later reconstructed and rendered into a 3D object.

With entries ranging from aerial views of entire islands to close-ups of bubbling water drops, more than 30 researchers, staff, faculty and students came together April 30 to showcase their creativity in the ninth-annual competition.

Art of Science, organized by Martha Terry, assistant director of the Office of Research Advancement, includes two main categories: the World Around Us for subjects visible to the bare eye, and Visualizing the Unseen for subjects that must be viewed with instruments and other optics.

First place in the World Around Us was “Unveiling the Secret Ears of Caterpillars: A Symphony of Vibration” by mechanical engineering doctoral candidate Sara Aghazadeh. It pictures a tiny turquoise caterpillar against the backdrop of ���غ���’s anechoic chamber, one of the most silent locations in the world.

“This image tells the story of our interdisciplinary research,” Aghazadeh wrote. “We explore how caterpillars perceive vibrations and sound. Inside an anechoic chamber, we use a laser vibrometer and micro-acoustic tools, aiming to unveil the hidden mechanisms of insect hearing.”

Archaeologist Carl Lipo took second place in the same category for his drone shot of Rapa Nui, formerly known as Easter Island. Rising up from the island’s lush greens is the central quarry where the island’s famous moai statues were painstakingly carved then brought down to the ground.

Winning third place in the World Around Us was network administration analyst Alan Wang’s “Soggy, But Satisfied,” showcasing a drenched northern cardinal and its crimson feathers.

In the Visualizing the Unseen category, SUNY Distinguished Professor Hiroki Sayama won second place for his entry, “Trajectories of Northern Lights.” Beneath the stunning vision of the lights that rippled across the skies above Brooktondale, N.Y., last October is a pixelated map of the hidden patterns swirling in the aurora, mapped out with a program called Mathematica.

Finally, taking home third place in the same category was Riadh Al-Haidari, a doctoral candidate in the School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, for the entry “Magnetically Aligned Anisotropic Conductive Epoxy.”

This year’s judges included Diane Butler, director of the ���غ��� Art Museum; Jenny Sammakia, director of the Analytical and Diagnostics Laboratories; Zagham Shah, digital content creator at the Office of Research Advancement; and Nathaniel Stickney, a senior majoring in financial economics.

Judge’s Choice selections went to mechanical engineering doctoral candidate Pranay Nirapure’s “Pool Boiling: Kitchen to Data Centers;” Wang’s “Soggy, But Satisfied;” Assistant Professor Sadamori Kojaku’s “Gravity of Ideas: Mapping Science at ���غ���;” and Senior Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching Paula Russell’s “Solstice Serenity.”

Art of Science was sponsored by the Division of Research’s Office of Research Advancement, the S3IP Center of Excellence and Nikon Instruments. The first-place prize was a pair of augmented reality glasses.