Award-winning comic by graduating master’s student tells the story of her work with children in palliative care
When Naomi Askenazi accepted a science communication prize for her comic Une nouvelle écoute: le chant du corps from the Association canadienne-française pour l’avancement des sciences (Acfas) on May 12, the award recognized more than her artistic talent.
It also honoured her work exploring one of the most fundamental human needs: the ability to communicate.
Askenazi’s comic tells the story of biomusic, an assistive technology designed to help caregivers and families connect with non-verbal children in palliative care.
The technology translates physiological signals such as heart rate and skin conductance into music in real time. A small finger sensor captures the body’s signals while a phone converts them into sound, creating a new way for caregivers and loved ones to listen and respond.
For Askenazi, who accepted her master’s degree in Experimental Medicine from McGill at spring Convocation on May 26, the project was always about more than technology.
“At its most beautiful, it’s a new way to understand another person,” she said.
Listening beyond words
Developed in 2010, biomusic had already been explored with several populations, including children with autism and people living with dementia.
Askenazi’s research focused on the introduction of biomusic into a pediatric palliative care facility and collaboration with caregivers, therapists and families to adapt the technology to their needs.
The work was deeply interdisciplinary, bringing together physiology, music, design and qualitative research. But at its core was a simple question: how can people connect with individuals who cannot communicate verbally?
“Speaking, smiling, nodding – we rely on all these forms of expression every day,” Askenazi said. “For minimally communicative children, those forms of communication may not be available in the same way.”
She began the project by volunteering regularly at the facility while learning the technology herself. Over time, she introduced the device in formal and informal settings, observing how children, caregivers and therapists interacted with it.
Askenazi says the facility itself challenged many assumptions people have about palliative care. Rather than a quiet, clinical space, it is vibrant and warm, with a music room, multi-sensory spaces and communal living areas designed to foster comfort and connection.
That atmosphere shaped the evolution of the project.
Different caregivers found different uses for the technology. Music therapists integrated the sounds into therapy sessions, responding musically to the child’s physiological signals with instruments such as guitar or flute. In quieter moments, caregivers or family members would simply sit beside a child and listen together.
“You don’t always need to be doing something,” Askenazi said. “Sometimes just being present together is enough.”
The project required constant adaptation. Early versions of the sound design proved too sharp or active for the setting, prompting Askenazi to create softer and subtler musical outputs better suited to the environment.
Caregivers, therapists and staff offered feedback, tested different approaches and helped shape how the technology would ultimately be used.
Communicating research differently
The award, given in the context of the 33rd Acfas Research Communication Competition, recognized not only the research itself but Askenazi’s ability to communicate it through art.
A lifelong illustrator and comics enthusiast, she said the competition was an opportunity to tell a scientific story in a more emotional and accessible form. Over two months, she wrote and illustrated a six-page comic explaining the technology and the relationships surrounding it.
Science communication, she explained, is not secondary to research but central to it.
“There’s so much fascinating work happening that remains hidden because we don’t always have ways of sharing it meaningfully with the general public,” Askenazi said.
Creating the comic also changed how she understood her own research. Translating scientific ideas into narrative and metaphor forced her to reconsider assumptions and focus on the emotional core of the project.
That emotional core was often visible in the responses from caregivers themselves.
Many of the children at the facility are minimally communicative, and staff members are constantly seeking new ways to understand and connect with them. For some caregivers, biomusic offered a new perspective on children they worked with every day.
“There was a lot of excitement and curiosity about this new tool” Askenazi said. “Participants felt that it was meaningful, and that it inspired new ways of interacting with the children.”
One of the central goals of the project was accessibility. Askenazi worked to ensure the facility could continue using biomusic independently after the research ended.
She hopes the project also encourages broader conversations about science communication itself, particularly for students and early-career researchers.
“When you try to explain your work creatively, it can change your own perspective of it,” she said. “It pushes your research in new directions.”
Askenazi said she now plans to continue pursuing projects that combine science, design and art. But the themes connecting her work remain consistent: listening, collaboration and finding new ways for people to connect.
In the end, the prize-winning comic and the technology behind it share the same goal – creating space for communication where words alone are not enough.