Lucia Perez-Diaz is just simply multi-talented. You could describe her a Geoscientist. She has a PhD from Royal Holloway, has worked as a researcher, has an impressive scientific publication record and practices geoscience professionally. As an Earth Scientist, of the hard rock geology variety, Lucia specialises in understanding the process of plate tectonics, describing herself as a detective using clues and computer models to recreate the way the earth may have been in the long, distant past.

You could describe her as an artist, or even a science-artist. She is also a freelance illustrator and an incredible artist. She has a very distinctive and aesthetically pleasing style that she describes a “fun and whimsical”. Much of what she creates is made using papercut methods and even when her art is digital, whether that’s the beautiful illustrations for the game QUARTETnary or in her book How the Earth Works,  it still carries that hand-crafted style. This is why her work appeals so much, it has a tactile quality, it looks like you  could pick it up and run your fingers along the edges of each cut piece of paper – like a vinyl record, it is a medium that provides a direct connection between the audience and the creator.

Finally, you could also describe her as a writer and storyteller. She called herself a detective and in How the Earth Works she uses this as a device to draw the reader through the book. The book itself is aimed at children to inspire them with geoscience and learn about plate tectonics, but really it is her own story of investigating the deep past of the planet that she is inviting the reader to join her in. Recently, she has also turned her talents to science-journalism, joining the press team for the European Geoscience Union General Assembly, covering the themes of the conference including gender, AI, and ethics.

I asked Lucia a few questions about imagination and what it means to her work:

Why is imagination important to the work you do?

Much of what we do as Earth Scientists relies on imagination. We imagine processes we can’t directly see, and times we can’t travel to. Science, to me, is built on curiosity—and curiosity naturally leads us to create new ideas, to imagine. For me, science, imagination, and creativity are deeply intertwined.

As an artist, imagination plays the obvious role in the creative process, but also in figuring out how to communicate science in ways that resonate with people who may have different perspectives, interests, or relationships with it. It’s about finding new entry points into scientific ideas.

How do you keep your imagination sharp?

One thing I started doing a few years ago that really helps keep me creatively fit is taking on projects that are outside my comfort zone. Last year, for example, I created a series of illustrations featuring eight different characters based on various lipids.

“Take cholesterol and design a character inspired by its molecular structure and characteristics” — it doesn’t get much weirder than that! At times I regretted agreeing to it, but it pushed me to think in new ways, and I was really happy with the final result.

Some of these experiments never make it to social media — sometimes because I’m not allowed to share them, other times because they don’t fit my usual content — but they absolutely help keep my imagination active.

What are you currently working on that you would like to shout about?

Following my first book How the Earth Works, I’ve been developing ideas for new books — which I can’t talk about just yet, but I’m very excited about!

Alongside that, throughout 2024 and 2025, I’ve been working on a print series called Adventures in Time. It explores what it might be like to travel through different geologic periods. Right now, I’m working on a piece inviting travellers to the Paleogene—where you can climb Mount Everest while it’s still easy! (The Himalayas only began forming around 50 million years ago, so Earth’s tallest mountain was just a hill back then.)

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