Felice Frankel

Felice Frankel is a science photographer and research scientist in the department of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with support from Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering. She began at MIT in 1994. Felice is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Guggenheim Fellow. She has served as a Senior Research Fellow in Harvard’s Initiative for Innovative Computing and as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Frankel’s work has been featured in Science, Nature, National Geographic, the New York Times, WIRED, Life, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Science Friday.” Her limited-edition photographs reside in corporate and private collections and have been exhibited widely, including at MoMA’s “Design and the Elastic Mind,” the Kennedy Center Arts Summit, the New York Hall of Science, along the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and in a Bracco Imaging–supported traveling show across Italy and at NYU’s Casa Italiana.

Phenomenal Moments - A close-up

When I think of a browser in a bookstore, looking around, and happening upon my book, I hope it will spark curiosity, and they will wonder what is it? What is under the cover? The book itself is trying to nudge curiosity. Curiosity is within all of us – the book aims to nudge it outward and allow the person to see more around them. I hope to encourage younger readers to take a longer look. The book is organized as a double spread of the image. And then it asks what do you see? The reader could take a guess and then flip the page. There, they can see the full picture. They can also see a description of the moment and the phenomenon. And the whole book becomes an interactive guessing game. The visuals and the description of the phenomenon will hopefully make the readers curious about science – interested in what science can potentially offer to all of us.Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of this book would be to intrigue young readers and make them excited about science. I would love for them to remove these barriers of fear about science, be able to see that it can be clear and understandable, and is also stunningly beautiful. Readers can start engaging in asking questions, so when they hear a powerful person talk about issues in science and health, they won’t accept it right away. They would question it. They would ask “what is that?” and “why is that?”. These are small and basic questions, but we live in a society that seems to accept everything it hears based on the authority of the person saying it. I am trying to tell young readers don't accept it right away. Start asking questions, 'wait a minute, how can Tylenol have an effect on autism? What is that about? How can that be?' And that applies to anything else they hear. Be more curious. Ask questions. That would be the ultimate ideal for this book.

Curator: Bora Pajo
December 4, 2025

Felice Frankel Phenomenal Moments: Revealing the Hidden Science Around Us Candlewick Press 128 pages, 7.8 x 9.3 inches ISBN 978-1536234893<br>‍

When the bottom of a copper pan is exposed to heat and air, it oxidizes, forming a thin layer of copper compounds—mainly copper carbonate. This patina develops through ongoing reactions that produce its colors.

Students were instrumental in helping me make selections for what to include in the book

Chlorophyll helps the leaves extract energy from sunlight, but in autumn chlorophyll is not being replenished. Yellowish and red pigments can now be seen.

Silica spheres align over time, creating opal’s rainbow through light diffraction.‍

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