Launching Charismatic Critter Club

Charismatic Critter Club—Science Illustration that Makes Conservation Click

A new science-illustration project is giving biodiversity a fresh cast of characters. Charismatic Critter Club was founded by Julianne “Jules” Ho—a student in the Brown–RISD Dual Degree Program and an undergraduate researcher of Institute at Brown for Environment & Society.

Charismatic Critter Club creates short visual narratives to translate the hidden biology of how real species live their lives into illustrated characters that we can all identify with.

The goal: make complex ecological relationships—food webs, symbioses, microbiomes, parasites—easier to understand, remember, and share, without washing over the science.

🔗 Charismatic Critter Club
🔗 Brown–RISD Dual Degree

Jules Ho uses her scientific training to create charismatic creatures—the art makes it easier to understand, remember, and share about species that are often overlooked components of biodiversity.

The Idea: Ecosystems are Hard to Picture—So Let's Make Them Visible

As Jules began working toward understanding the biology of invertebrates—animals without a backbone like the corals, starfish, and insects that make up most of the planet's biodiversity—she ran into an all-too familiar problem. Even when the science is fascinating, it can be difficult for people to intuitively grasp how species interact in complex ecosystems when those species and their interactions are often described in the most impenetrable technical language

The goal is not only to communicate ecological concepts, but also to foster curiosity and community engagement with biodiversity.  —Jules Ho

Charismatic Critter Club is her solution. By converting species into characters—each designed to reflect what the organism does and how it interacts with others—Jules invites audiences into the fundamental logic that drives ecosystems through playful and visual storytelling.

Just as importantly, Charismatic Critter Club is research-driven. Jules’ designs are inspired by the same sources that underpin ecology itself:

• field guides
• peer-reviewed scientific papers
• biodiversity platforms such as iNaturalist

Jules Ho: Ecology Training at Brown University + Illustration Training at the Rhode Island School of Design

Jules is pursuing two degrees through the Brown–RISD Dual Degree Program (2022–2027):

• B.Sc. Environmental Science at Brown
• B.F.A. Illustration at RISD

The unique institutional structure provided by this program is a big part of what makes Charismatic Critter Club possible: deep scientific training paired with professional illustration training.

Her work has also been recognized with the Maharam STEAM Fellowship and a Brown Undergraduate Teaching & Research Award, supporting her interest in high-quality research and high-impact communication.

Jules Ho's Honors thesis seeks to characterize the gut microbiomes and parasites of sloths.

As a Maharam Fellow, Jules Ho designed character-based cards and stickers to describe marine biodiversity.

As a Maharam Fellow, Jules Ho led workshops using character-based story telling to introduce marine ecology concepts to elementary students.

Jules Ho launched Charismatic Critter Club as a sci-comm platform to convey ecological concepts with character-based storytelling.

🔗 View Jules's art portfolio: https://www.dazzlingfish.com/
🔗 View Jules's scientific study system: Sloth Ecology & Evolution

From Lab Bench to Sketchbook: Charismatic Critter Club is Inspired by Real Molecular Ecology

Charismatic Critter Club is not “science-themed” art. It’s science, communicated through art.

Jules has been an undergraduate researcher in the Genomic Opportunities Lab at Brown University, where she helps generate the kinds of data that conservation and ecology rely on.

Her lab experience includes:

• generating DNA barcodes to document new species helminths (parasitic worms) 
• conducting dietary DNA analyses to inform the conservation management of wildlife
• processing characterizing the gut microbiomes of wild sloths in Costa Rica

That lab-to-sketchbook foundation helps consumers of the content be sure that Charismatic Critter Club is based on factual information that is as accurate as anything out there. Jules has first-hand experience generating scientific knowledge so she understands not just the take-away, but the methods, assumptions, and experiences that live behind the science.

🔗 Jules describes​ her lab experience in this feature: Collaborative by Nature—Rewriting Conservation Science

What’s Next: Rainforests, Sloths, and Charismatic Microbes

Jules is pursuing an Honors thesis at Brown that focuses on free-ranging sloth gut microbiomes in Costa Rica. She has just been awarded a competitive Voss Research Fellowship from the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society to pursue the project, which has been developing in close collaboration with the Sloth Conservation Foundation—leaders in the conservation of wild sloths. The project treats sloths as holobionts—hosts plus the microbial and parasitic communities that shape health and nutrition—and will examine how their gastrointestinal communities vary with habitat disturbance and host species identity. The results could soon meaningfully inform how conservationists plan and implement important like translocations and reintroductions in the wild.
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If future illustrations feature beloved and traditionally “charismatic” sloths hanging out in rainforest canopies—you can bet the “un-charismatic” bacteria and parasites that live in their guts will make an appearance as well. That’s exactly the point: conservation depends on relationships that most people rarely see or think about, and Charismatic Critter Club is designed to make those relationships easier for all of us to notice.

Why Charismatic Critter Club Matters

Sometimes it helps to think about conservation as a public project—just as important to invest in and maintain as roads, railways, and sidewalks if you don't want to see things crumble. 

Charismatic Critter Club highlights a key piece of modern conservation science: the advantage of pairing rigorous research with communication tools that can reach communities beyond the ivory tower of elite universities.

Projects like Charismatic Critter Club take root when our best emerging talents have access to mentorship, resources for research, and time to grow. When you see outcomes that are both scientifically accurate and widely accessible, consider supporting the artist as well as the intellectual ecosystems in which she resides.

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