Aurore Simonnet is a native of the Bordeaux region of France, where she developed her love of art (specifically space) and synchronized (now artistic) swimming, following in her oldest sister’s steps. After spending time in the United States as an exchange student in high school, she returned as a college student to pursue “arts”. Aurore attended Chabot College where she earned her AA in Graphic Design. She then went on to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she designed her own course of study in scientific illustration while rekindling her love of synchro. Upon graduation she found employment with the NASA Education and Public Outreach Group at Sonoma State University CA, now known as EdEon STEM Learning, where she has worked ever since. When not in a swimming pool, Aurore’s “day job” is to convey the wonders of the Universe to the public through extraordinary illustrations that have brought her world renown. Whether it is black holes warping space and time as they collide, ushering in the era of gravitational wave astronomy (and winning the Nobel prize in Physics in 2017), or black holes shooting out jets of matter, or neutron stars colliding and creating heavy chemical elements, Aurore has the ability to visualize and illustrate what most people can barely envision. Her illustrations have appeared on the covers of Nature and Science magazines, as well as in countless newspaper and magazine articles, textbook covers and personal use products such as teeshirts and coffee mugs. Aurore has also created games, educational activities, a pop up book, numerous paper models of satellites, and a weekly webcomic that teaches space science.
Aurore’s designs and the EdEon team’s science education resources are successful because Aurore understands how to coach a team in the process of iterative design, the plan, do, study, act process of her EdEon team. Aurore ensures that any creative endeavor she does has enough time for the brainstorming phase. After ideas have been allowed to come forth, then she supports time for the team to iterate on design and function.
When not working, swimming or at home attending to her cats, Aurore can often be found contemplating Nature, especially the ocean…