The Cochrane community is embracing their geek chic and love for evidence-based healthcare with Cochrane merch! For our initial designs, we worked with Dr. Lauren Callender from Science Scribbles.
We talked to Lauren about her background, the growing 'geek chic' trend, and what it was like working on these new designs for the Cochrane Community.
Hi Lauren, can you tell us a bit about your background?
Sure, I’m a research scientist working in the field of cancer immunotherapy. I have a PhD in Immunology and absolutely love T cells! Before my PhD I completed a BSc in Biology, MSc in Molecular Medicine and an MRes in Inflammation. When I started my undergraduate degree 10 years ago, I never imagined staying in education for so long, but I loved working in the lab so much that I just carried on.
From the lab to designing through Science Scribbles; how did that happen?
Science Scribbles initially started as an educational YouTube channel where I created hand-drawn science tutorials - I called it scribbles as my artistic abilities are very limited on paper! As the online SciComm community enjoyed these, I started to design digital scribbles and create colourful accessories and gifts to help people celebrate science.
We love that more people want to celebrate science. Is 'Geek Chic' really a trend?
Definitely! Scientists and researchers are very passionate and proud of their work and wearing science merch is a great way to outwardly show that. In the past I feel like a lot of science merch was either aimed at children or was too plain or serious. My mission for Science Scribbles is to create lots of fun and chic science accessories that people like myself would want to wear.
Why do you think it’s important to explicitly show support for science?
Openly supporting science and sharing science through science communication and public engagement is crucial as it helps to highlight the important work that scientists do, and to build trusts between scientists and the public. I feel this is even more important at the minute as trust in science is absolutely necessary during the current global pandemic.
Our Cochrane Community has been asking for some merchandise on social media. We were excited to work with someone that understood the passion behind our work and the importance of systematic reviews.
I was excited to work with Cochrane too! A big part of being a scientist is staying up to date with the scientific literature and also contributing to science through publications. Whenever I am looking for publications I often search for Cochrane reviews as these are always highly informative and trust worthy.
The new Cochrane designs look great!
Thanks! For this project, I particularly wanted to draw attention to the fact that Cochrane is very highly regarded by the scientific community. I hope I was able to visually depict this and that people will really love the designs!
