SciArt profile: Henning Falk

Posted by the Node, on 17 June 2025

In this SciArt profile, we find out more about Henning Falk, who did a PhD in developmental biology, and now enjoys creating science-related cartoons as a freelancer.

[Click on the images to view the full-size versions of the cartoons]

Can you tell us about your background and what you work on now?

I studied molecular biotechnology and completed my PhD at EMBL Heidelberg, where I focused on somitogenesis in mouse embryos. Microscopy has always been my favorite technology, and during my PhD project, I developed a method to live-image mouse embryo development for up to three days. After finishing my PhD, I left research and transitioned from microscope development to CNN-based image analysis, and eventually to intelligent document processing using large language models. I currently work as a project manager for a company that builds document processing solutions. Creating cartoons for science communication serves as my connection back to my former researcher self.

Were you always going to be a scientist?

No, my early career ideas went all over the place, though they did include both biologist and artist – sometimes leaning more toward one, other times toward the other. Now I’m a customer AI project manager – life certainly takes surprising turns sometimes.

And what about art – have you always enjoyed it?

Yes, absolutely. In kindergarten, I gave myself the self-imposed task of drawing one picture every day to bring home. During primary school, I was a regular participant in local painting competitions. Later, I focused more and more on cartoon drawing – I’m not really sure why, but somehow it stuck with me.

What or who are your most important artistic influences?

My biggest influences are other cartoonists who manage to convey their message – their joke – in just one simple drawing and a sentence or two. For me, that’s the real essence of good cartoons: condensing a story so drastically that one image is enough to give you the background story, introduce the characters, and deliver a punchline. It’s pretty remarkable. Ralph Ruthe and Joscha Sauer (maker of “Nichtlustig”) are two German cartoonists I find quite inspiring and funny.

Does your science influence your art at all, or are they separate worlds?

I started creating scientific cartoons for friends and colleagues when I was still working on my PhD, and I also used drawings in my own presentations to illustrate my results and theories. I received a lot of positive feedback. A few years ago, I began doing scientific cartoons and illustrations as a freelancer. So today, it’s not my science influencing my art, but rather the science of my “clients.” I find it tremendously fun to work together with researchers to figure out exactly what message they want to convey and how to transform that abstract concept or complicated experimental result into a simple drawing. It’s a tug of war between completeness and simplicity, and sometimes we go a long way together – from a page-long list of detailed sub-results to nailing down the 2-3 main takeaway points that fit into one cartoon. This is where my background in science, my love for cartoon drawing, and my project management skills come together nicely. Voilà!

What are you thinking of working on next?

I just finished a project for a psychologist, and before that, there were several projects in biological data management. As for what comes next, I don’t know yet.