ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ana Velez, MD, FACP, FIDSA

Dr. Ana Velez's family tried to divert her interest from art to a more traditional career to ensure she had the economic resources to survive in Colombia. Finally, after her perseverance, her parents enrolled Ana in a local art academy, Academia de Arte de Antonio Herrera. She started her first art class (oil painting) at 13. She was very disciplined and would attend the classes four times a week for about two to three hours.

Dr. Velez is a member of the board of director for the Coalition of Hispanic Artists of Tampa. She was was born in Medellín, Colombia. She started drawing when she was able to hold a pen. She has always been fascinated with the human figure, particularly the face, the colors and the light. She remembers having difficulties at school because she was sitting in the back of the classroom, always daydreaming with her mind focused on her drawing and the beautiful natural view of the window rather than the class.  Her formal guided art studies stopped when she was 20 years old. While in medical school, her time was limited to continue dedicated painting, but her artistic mind never stopped collecting new ideas and information. She soon realized that her learning process and how she saw life differed significantly from the rest of her medical school colleagues. She learned the complexity of the brain, primarily how we collect and communicate information. This is especially true for the artistic brain. Frequently, we find that the traditional methods impede new innovative and creative learning methods.

Following a successful career in medical school and at the University of South Florida, Dr. Velez tried to communicate different medical concepts, including art and medicine, more visually to students. Dr. Velez firmly believes that science and art are complementary and need to blend.

For more about the artist and her available art, visit Galen Artist

ABOUT THE ART

The theme of my paintings is “The Spillover “. Each represents that uneasy boundary where wildlife , domestic animals, pathogens, and humans intersect. The moment an infection can cross ecological or species boundaries causing unexpected outbreaks.

Sarah Rowan, MD, FIDSA

Dr. Sarah Rowan is the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Denver Health Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Rowan’s research focuses on optimizing public health efforts to diagnose, treat, and prevent HIV and hepatitis C. Her roles in medical school include Associate Director of the Mentored Scholarly Activity Program and Director of the Peak-to-Peak Pathway Program to accelerate entry of medical students into the field of Infectious Diseases. As an artist, Dr. Rowan has been painting and drawing her whole life, and she builds her skills through community art classes when time permits.

ABOUT THE ART

This series of paintings for Dr. Rowan’s artwork at the IDSA Foundation Art Auction at IDWeek 2026 is called “Vectors and Intermediate Hosts.” Despite the peril they harbor, these critters are just living their best lives, integral members of the natural world. Even the bloodsuckers. I want to express my gratitude to the scientists who study these small animals and the microbes they carry, allowing us to continue developing better diagnostics and treatments so we can coexist with these creatures. Take a moment to observe these animals from a different perspective, acknowledging the tension between our wariness of them, as carriers of disease and all-around nuisances, and our admiration for their beauty and their rightful place in nature.

Katarzyna Karpinska-Leydier, MD

Dr. Katarzyna (Kasia) Karpińska-Leydier is an Infectious Disease fellow at the University of South Florida. She completed her medical degree at Poznań University of Medical Sciences in Poland and her undergraduate training in Honors Biochemistry/Biotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where early exposure to microbiology laboratory work first introduced her to the visual world of microorganisms: culture plates, microscopy, the unexpected beauty of what grows unseen. Originally from Toronto, she trained in classical art before medicine took her elsewhere. That foundation never left her; both require noticing what others walk past. It is a profound honor to have the opportunity to present this work at IDWeek and to connect with colleagues through art, a language that reaches what medicine's textbooks sometimes cannot.

Infectious disease is the discipline of finding the invisible. Every culture, epidemiological pattern, and clinical presentation is an exercise in discovering what cannot be seen directly, inferring the organism from its effects. Perhaps it is no coincidence that ID physicians are drawn to art. We spend our careers looking for hidden things. Art asks us to do the same.

ABOUT THE ART
What They Found is a series of four watercolors on paper, each depicting a fragment of humanity at the moment of encounter with an invisible organism that changed the world.

Her series What They Found grew directly from her ID fellowship. Immersed in the history of infectious disease, she began finding hidden connections between the scientists and the organisms they discovered; connections that felt like they needed to be painted rather than written. The Latin word penicillus means little paintbrush. Fleming's mold named itself after the instrument that would one day render its portrait. That kind of discovery, where science and art fuse into a single image, is what drives both her medicine and her work.

IDSA Foundation Art Auction 2026

Bid on ID-inspired artwork