I am curating an international museum exhibition with Dr Claas Kirchhelle about the past and present of typhoid fever: www.typhoidland.org. Our feature animation for this exhibition won the Bristol Science Film Festival Best Factual Film Prize and the digital games we developed were awarded gold for Best Learning Game at the Learning Technologies Awards, as well as for the overall project the BSHS Ayrton Prize for Digital Engagement. We also received extensive media coverage by BBC One South, BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service. In reviews, the Daily Info called it “An Audacious Exhibition” and The New Scientist picked it as one of their “Best new exhibitions”. As part of this project, we edited a special supplement for the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases for which we produced a summary article for The Conversation and our research was covered in over 90 national and international outlets (the World Economic Forum, New York Post, The Sun, and The Telegraph). We have been successful in gaining continued funding for this work from the NVF (2018-2021) and the IRC-AHRC (2021-2024).
Previously, with Prof. Angela McLean and Prof. Catrina Seth, I designed a ‘Voyage in Vaccines’ event for European Researchers Night 2017 (‘Curiosity Carnival’, ca. 10,000 visitors).
On vaccine attitudes, I have spoken on podcasts for Guardian Science, Infectious Historians, COVIDCalls, and Sonar Global; the radio for BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 5 Live Nihal Arthanayake show, LBC Tom Swarbrick show, the Alexis Conran and Matthew Wright show on talkRADIO, Times Radio, Monocle Radio, Sonar Global; and TV for BBC South News, BBC Newsnight, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, France 24. I have taken part in the G7 Vaccine Confidence Luminaries, United Nations Verified Campaign, as part of the TeamHalo (LSHTM/UN/GAVI) and the Guardian’s Value of Vaccines Campaign; receiving recognition for work on vaccines, including the Paul Lazarsfeld Best Paper Award with colleagues.
I have presented at several public events, at the Cheltenham Science Festival, BU Bicknell Lecture, UCL QHRN Seminar, Young Scientists of the Year Awards, Heidelberg Global Health Lecture Series, BSMS Social Science Forum, Oxford Martin School ‘Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination debate’, European Health Forum, WFPHA at the World Health Assembly, Vaccines Today, IF Festival in Oxford, Vaccini e Obbligo: tra Medicina, Etica e Politica, University of Turin. I participate and present regularly in conferences such as 4S, EASST, and ICA. With a colleague Dr Seilesh Kadambari we engaged with over 200 ethnic minority community groups in the UK about vaccine concerns and questions. An example of our work with these groups included a local radio broadcast and podcast with a youth panel.
I have been interviewed about vaccination and health misinformation for: BBC (19 June 2022), BBC (6 December 2021), The Guardian (3 December 2021), Der Standard (26 November 2021), Wired (31 July 2021), The New Statesman (20 July 2021), The Guardian (29 December 2020), BBC Mundo (11 December 2020), The Week (24 September 2020), The Times (12 September 2020), Newsweek (7 September 2020), iNews (30 July 2020), Nature (17 June 2020), Der Standard (10 May 2020), Wired (8 April 2020), Metro (26 April 2020), Devex (30 Aril 2019). I have also written newspaper letters for The Times (7 December 2020), The Guardian (22 May 2019), and was on the Reddit AskScience AMA Series answering questions about vaccines and society.
During my PhD I co-organised a podcast and workshop series on neglected tropical diseases: www.challengingneglect.com and post-PhD I have presented at conferences (e.g. Human Development Capabilities Approach Conference); and been invited to give talks for BSMS Social Science Forum and the Global Health Histories Seminar on Women in the History of Tropical Medicine, which was organised by the University of York and Fiocruz in Brazil, and live-streamed on YouTube.
Samantha Vanderslott 