Originally from Hungary, Viktoria Havasi, M.D., Ph.D., is a researcher in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. She has been conducting cystic fibrosis research at UAB since 2006. In her downtime, she is on a mission to photograph every mural in the Birmingham area.

Havasi started an Instagram account, @magiccitymurals, to showcase her photos. She has photographed over 100 murals across the metro area so far and says she has a list of 20-30 more she plans to shoot.

“A lot of the murals are in places that were kind of run-down before,” Havasi says. “It was an ugly gray wall, and someone came with a bunch of paint and made something beautiful.”

Havasi is often surprised by the hidden gems she finds. “Sometimes I don’t even know what the murals look like beforehand. I just have an address and go there, and I’m like, ‘Wow!’

“I hope that people discover how pretty Birmingham is, how many murals we have, and how many nice areas we have that they might not know about.”