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Dr Emma Rehn

@bluerehn.bsky.social

1.2K followers 250 following 150 posts

Science illustrator | Research communicator for TropWATER | Palaeoenviro scientist | Archaeologist | Crafter Based in Far North Queensland, Australia Portfolio: https://emmarehn.com

emmarehn.com

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jan 8

My science illustration commissions are open!

If you want to visualise your research this year through custom illustrations, logos, or infographics, please get in touch

Visit emmarehn.com for my portfolio and contact info

#SciArt #SciComm #ScienceIllustration

A graphic showing six vertical panels of digital illustrations and a title box that reads "Commissions are open"

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · 10h

True story: if your dog is wearing a t-shirt, that's a human (confirmed by AI)

Thanks to my workmate Caitlin for letting me use her screenshot! #comic #AI (but not drawn by AI)

A three-panel comic. The first panel shows Plato saying "The definition of a human? A featherless biped." The second panel shows a robot labelled "A.I." saying "Okay, got it!" The third panel shows the A.I. robot showing an unimpressed Plato a screenshot of a security camera view of a dog in a t-shirt labelled "5:20pm Human" and declaring "Behold - a human!"

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · 8d

Illustrating water quality challenges - this is some of my recent work showing how fire, roads & tracks, and eroding gullies can impact water quality (& how a gully can be repaired!)

These were created for my work with TropWATER & their collab with the Cape York Water Quality Partnership #SciArt

A digital illustration of a wooded hilly landscape with a river running through the middle. On the left, a burn from earlier in the dry season has left trees alive and is not eroding. On the right, a hot late dry season burn has charred the landscape, killing trees and eroding charcoal and soil into the river

A digital illustration showing a creek crossing a dirt road, with rain eroding channels into the road, forming a downstream gully and releasing soil in to the river below

A two-panel illustration showing an eroded alluvial gully releasing dirty water and a remediated gully, covered in vegetation with a rock chute to channel the water flow

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Aug 14

Introducing Deep Time Detectives! 🔎

Deep Time Detectives is an educational resource developed by CABAH on Australia's deep history, featuring a series of animated videos. I drew a collection of original illustrations and animated elements for these videos #SciComm

emmarehn.com/portfolio/de...

A collection of graphics centred on an anthropomorphised wombat in a waistcoat, holding a magnifying glass and pocket watch, next to the text "Deep Time Detectives". The surrounding graphics include a gumtree flower, a wallaby skull, a tree, a pollen grain, a quoll, a charcoal particle, grasses, footprints, fire, and a potoroo.

An animated GIF of a cartoon wallaby eating leaves off a small tree sapling

A wide image showing an illustrated landscape, transiting from open grassland with scattered trees on the left through to increasingly closed woodland with minimal grass and more dense shrubs

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Reposted by Dr Emma Rehn

Katria Raden @katriaraden.bsky.social · Jul 28

I have some exciting news to share! A bunch of friends (and amazing artists) and I are hosting an art challenge this August 🌻

We put together a fun and chill prompt list and hope you’ll join us on this adventure hehe

More below 🐥

Digital illustration of a blond girl with her hair in braids, looking through binoculars at a starling on the left, with one foot on a tree stump. Between them is text:

August Adventures

1-7 august
Bloom+Journey
8-14 august
Meadow+Rain
15-21 august
Ancient+Trinkets
22-28 august
Sprout+Magic

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jul 16

This describes my side gig! Here's my portfolio - please let me know if you'd like any further info or think my style would be a good fit: emmarehn.com

Dr Emma Rehn

Science communicator and illustrator

emmarehn.com

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jul 12

My dog definitely plays favourites 🐾

#comic #BorderCollie

A three-panel comic. The first panel shows a guy opening a door, smiling and saying "Hey, Lucy!" A label points to him that reads 'brother'. The second panel shows him leaning forward to a chocolate and white Border Collie moving towards him, as he says "Did you miss-" The final, double-width panel shows the dog rushing past him to wag her tail at a woman walking through the door behind him, labelled 'sister-in-law'. He says "...me?" and she says "Hi, Luce!"

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jun 27

Live-sketches from COCE 2025 🌱

This week, I attended & presented online as part of the Conference on Communication and Environment

There were so many great sessions & discussions - I drew these live-sketches during all of the hybrid and virtual sessions I attended! #scicomm #sciart #livesketch

A collection of 16 digital sketches on a white background, summarising sessions from an environmental communication conference featuring plants, animals, and people.

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jun 25

Such an amazing effort! Very deserving of a celebratory puffin

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jun 24

I was recently commissioned to create two illustrations for The Australian Geologist, the quarterly magazine of the Geological Society of Australia

One highlights featured research, the other is just for fun!

Read the TAG June issue here: issuu.com/gsaustralia/...

#geology #sciart #scicomm

A cartoon showing hands holding a phone displaying an app titled "relative dating", subtitled "Find your fossil assemblage". The app shows a fossil fish, fern, and three-toed footprint captioned "Upper Jurassic 161.5 - 143.1 Ma". Buttons below the caption read "Not for me" and "It's a match!"

A drawing of a top-down view of a landscape divided into two vertical panels, with a large, three-toed footprint in the centre shared across both views. The left panel shows a sandy floodplain with bushes, and the receding foot that created the footprint. The right panel shows seawater lapping and molluscs growing in and around the fossil footprint, with running shoes and a person holding a camera to take a photo of the footprint, with a scale bar beside it

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jun 17

New paper for the palaeofire fans!

Presenting the SahulCHAR collection, containing 687 sedimentary charcoal records from across Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand 🔥

Read it open access: doi.org/10.5194/essd...

This is the product of my final postdoc - thanks to all who contributed their data!

A graphical abstract for the OCTOPUS SahulCHAR collection showing a map of Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand with red dots for data points. Text on the right of the image presents key statistics: 425 locations, 531 cores, 687 char records, 23 contributors

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · May 18

Happy National Archaeology Week!

This year's craft in celebration of Archaeology Week is little clay pendants - the scale bar is 4cm

#2025NAW #archaeology #craft

A photograph of four clay pendants of a trowel, an amphora, a bivalve shell half, and a colour scale bar, each attached to loops of black cord

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Apr 28

Applications close this Sunday for this year's ABC TOP 5 media residency!

If you're an Australian ECR with an interest in boosting your comms skills, I recommend applying - I'm happy to answer questions as a 2022 awardee

Here's the link to the Science stream (Humanities & Arts also open) #scicomm

ABC TOP 5 Media Residency Program — SCIENCE - ABC listen

The ABC TOP 5 Science is a two-week media residency presented by ABC Radio National in partnership with the Australian National University.

www.abc.net.au

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Apr 15

Everyone please go have fun scribbling, painting, drawing, and otherwise finding joy in making art 🎨

#WorldArtDay #Artsky

Drawings of art supplies around the text "Happy World Art Day" on a multicolour painted background

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Mar 14

I'm in Australia so arguably we should be waiting until 31 April too! But we celebrated for the Americans in the office 🙂

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Mar 14

Happy Pi Day! 🥧 This is my first time making pies, so I went for mini ones to share at work

A photograph of a dozen mini apple pies on baking paper

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Feb 14

Happy Lucy day, everyone 🐾

A photograph of a brown and white Border Collie smiling at the camera, laying on a footpath in the centre of a chalk circle in rainbow colours. Chalk writing on the right says "Happy 11th birthday Lucy!"

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Feb 11

Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science! 🧪

To celebrate at my work, I asked some of the brilliant researchers I work with about their experiences in science - and their passion for it really shines through

#InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience

Celebrating the work of women in science

To celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 February), we’re highlighting some of the many women doing amazing work with TropWATER across freshwater and marine sciences. Read ...

www.tropwater.com

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Reposted by Dr Emma Rehn

Thesiswhisperer @thesiswhisperer.bsky.social · Feb 7

Boredom scrolling turning into doom scrolling by accident? Try WikiTok!

Presents random wiki articles in addictive scrolling format!

wikitok.vercel.app

WikiTok

wikitok.vercel.app

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Reposted by Dr Emma Rehn

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · Feb 4

Stromatolites xkcd.com/3046

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Feb 4

Like Micha, I was lucky enough to receive an AINSE PGRA during my PhD, and I second Micha's recommendation to apply!

A great opportunity for Aus/NZ PhD students who could benefit from using ANSTO facilities for their research, such as radiocarbon and lead-210 dating labs #AcademicSky

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Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jan 29

That sounds like a very cool, and challenging, job!

I hope you like this sketch inspired by the scale of global to personal in your work

A cartoon showing the Earth overlaid with high-rise city buildings, a house, and the silhouette of a person

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jan 28

That's okay, you can share your area of work expertise without it being research! (If you want to, no pressure)

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jan 27

That's a cute one! Just a note that you need to be following me if you'd like a cartoon - but no worries if you're here just for the exchange of spiders! 🕷️

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jan 27

Those who have followed me since days of yore might remember I did free sketches like this back in 2021 for science folks on Twitter

You can see all of those sketches (including spider friend in the post above, drawn for @spiderdaynightlive.bsky.social) here: emmarehn.com/portfolio/tw...

Twitter Science Cartoons

In October 2021, I tweeted an offer: any scientist could comment with a few words on their work and themselves, and I’d draw them a cartoon. Over one week, I drew cartoons for 35 scientists a…

emmarehn.com

Dr Emma Rehn @bluerehn.bsky.social · Jan 27

This week, I'm celebrating reaching 1k followers! 🎉

If you follow me: comment with a few words about your research/area of expertise and some things you enjoy - and I'll sketch a little cartoon for you

A cartoon of a jumping spider in a white outfit, striking a pose on a colourful glowing dance floor in homage to John Travolta in Saturday Night Live

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