{"id":51264,"date":"2020-03-02T13:17:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=51264"},"modified":"2020-03-02T13:17:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:17:03","slug":"looking-like-a-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/looking-like-a-scientist\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking like a scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have a wardrobe full of food-print dresses, hundreds of pairs of food shaped earrings, a collection of food-themed hair accessories, and even a handbag shaped like a lemon wedge.<\/p>\n

If you follow me on social media, you will see a new combination of foods multiple times a week. But I\u2019m not a fashion account \u2013 \u00a0I\u2019m a Food and Nutrition Scientist and Science Communicator. I say, \u201cCome for the food fashion, stay for the food science!\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t deliberately set out to \u201cbuild a brand\u201d or become a caricature of myself, but when I stop and reflect on how I ended up here, I\u2019m not sad and I\u2019m not surprised. I am living my best\u00a0Ms Frizzle<\/a>\u00a0life and loving it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an identical twin
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Having a genetic clone, I\u2019ve always used hair, makeup, clothes and accessories to reduce confusion and set myself apart from my sister.<\/p>\n

After I finished my PhD and started my fellowship, I went through a phase of \u201cdressing professionally\u201d as I tried to mimic what I saw in the workplace around me. I felt like I lost myself for a little bit in that time, looking in the mirror I didn\u2019t see me, I saw my twin sister.<\/span><\/p>\n

Luckily, I stopped listening to the \u201cconventional wisdom,\u201d re-equilibrated and found my loud fruity-ness again.<\/p>\n

Stealing from the influencers<\/h4>\n

When I first joined social media, I was a wide-eyed, idealistic PhD student looking to change the world. Wellness bloggers, celebrity chefs and influencers were talking to the world about food and nutrition while actual experts were talking amongst themselves.<\/p>\n

Anti-expert sentiment was growing and even on social media I saw expert after expert keeping it professional and sticking to the facts. Experts were talking to the media and facts were getting twisted for clicks, for the sake of simplification, or through misunderstandings.<\/p>\n

I thought about the issue of anti-expert sentiment and trust and realised no one was going to trust an anonymous lab coat in glasses.<\/p>\n

People trust people, not facts.<\/p>\n

This is exactly what the influencers were doing, they build the trust and the community, and that\u2019s why we buy what they are selling, even if the facts don\u2019t add up. I know lots of scientists, doctors and other professionals like to keep their social media accounts professional. But for me, being all me, profession, outfits, cats, football, emotion and all helps be build that trust. And it means a diverse range of people follow me to tell me what they think, need and worry about in my area of expertise.<\/p>\n

I look like a scientist<\/h4>\n

Through twitter I found the hashtags\u00a0#ILookLikeAScientist<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0#ScientistsWhoSelfie<\/em><\/a>. This empowered me as a woman and an applied scientist to share my personality and story. As I shared selfies, I noticed that people were particularly excited about them when I wore my strawberry or pineapple earrings. These then became my special occasion and conference earrings. On a trip to Tokyo for a conference, I wanted a pair of sushi earrings as a souvenir. Takeshita Street provided me with 15 or so pairs of food earrings, and suddenly I was a food earring collector.<\/p>\n

It makes people happy & starts conversations<\/h4>\n

Around the same time, I got some food-print dresses. I hadn\u2019t originally purchased them because they were food, but because they were loud and bright and fun. They made me happy, and it turns out they make other people happy. Online, at conferences, at work, in meetings, random people in the street\u2026 they started conversations and made people smile. I realised they were the ultimate icebreaker. I can wear my fruit salad dress and talk about fruit intake recommendations, or my veggie dress and talk about ways of adding veggies to your diet, or my chocolate desserts dress can start a conversation about guilt and junk foods.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s on brand<\/h4>\n

In the last couple of years, I spend some time working with Emma Donnelly from\u00a0Comm-it<\/a>, a professional science communicator and communications trainer. I had fallen into science communication through sheer enthusiasm and determination. Like my social media, I hadn\u2019t given much thought to \u201cwho\u201d I was in my communications. I knew that I was a sassy myth buster, but I hadn\u2019t really given much thought to a persona or my style. In a training session, Emma added me to her list of science communicators with a visual brand, along with\u00a0Dr Karl and his loud shirts<\/a>, Prof\u00a0Alan Duffy and his bow tie<\/a>,\u00a0Fiona Wood and her pearls<\/a>. I realised I was kind of stuck with food outfits, and I realised I didn\u2019t mind one bit!<\/p>\n

Not everyone likes it<\/h4>\n

Online trolls have accused me of promoting junk food and diabetes when I wear my doughnut dress or my cereal box earrings. I have been told to dress more sensibly by Professors. I\u2019ve been mistaken for a student in multiple settings, including the staff car park. But for every one of those reactions I\u2019ve had thousands of likes and re-tweets, hundreds of great conversations started, and more compliments and kindness than I can count. It\u2019s actually an excellent jerk filter. If someone doesn\u2019t want to work with me or take me seriously because of my appearance, I really don\u2019t want to work with them anyway!<\/p>\n

Smashing stereotypes<\/h4>\n

I\u2019ve had young women tell me they see themselves in science now. I\u2019ve had mums and dads tell me their children look up to me. I\u2019ve been on TV, radio, in magazines and newspapers. I\u2019ve had other women tell me they feel brave to wear the clothes they want to, rather than the ones they are expected to wear.<\/p>\n

I want to do good science, and I do want to change the world.<\/p>\n

Some people think that I\u2019m just a social media scientist, that I can\u2019t wear food outfits and be a serious career researcher. But I\u2019m less than 4 years post-PhD, have a competitive fellowship, an ongoing position, 5 PhD students, an H-index of 16, and more than 1000 citations.<\/p>\n

Turns out, in the modern world, you can do good science, communicate facts, be authentic, AND look fabulous doing it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong><\/em> Dr Emma Beckett<\/em>\u00a0is an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow and Lecturer in Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Newcastle, Australia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a wardrobe full of food-print dresses, hundreds of pairs of food shaped earrings, a collection of food-themed hair accessories, and even a handbag shaped like a lemon wedge. If you follow me on social media, you will see a new combination of foods multiple times a week. But I\u2019m not a fashion account […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":51265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86115],"tags":[350733],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-51264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-appearances"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLooking like a scientist - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/looking-like-a-scientist\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking like a scientist - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a wardrobe full of food-print dresses, hundreds of pairs of food shaped earrings, a collection of food-themed hair accessories, and even a handbag shaped like a lemon wedge. 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