Gretchen Kai Halpert is the owner of the Scientific Illustration Distance Program (SIDP). She has taught through the SIDP since 2014; through the Natural Science Illustration Program at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)/CE for fourteen years prior, and she co-directed Art and Medicine at Brown University for six years.Halpert has curated exhibitions and has critiqued artwork extensively. Her science background includes a degree in botany and twenty-five years working as a cell and molecular biologist while freelancing as a scientific illustrator. She presents regularly at conference and has been an invited speaker at the New York Botanical Gardens and Harvard Herbarium. Halpert is past-president of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.