Meet Alice Wetherell, artist and communicator with the Population Health Exchange

Ali didn’t start her career as an artist or science communicator. Inspired by dinosaurs, her favourite is Deinonychus by the way, she originally studied zoology and anthropology at University.

“First year science sadly showed me that we’re not going to resurrect dinosaurs from amber. So I decided the next best thing was to bring them back through visual effects,” says Ali.

To this end Ali studied 3D animation and put her artistic talents to good use at Disney, then animating computer games. Here’s a fun fact– Ali has a character called Wilma based on her likeness for the computer game Fallout Tactics. Ali also set her skills towards science communication where she has created a cartoon for the National Museum of Australia, and another for Questacon.

These days Ali’s favourite muse is painting spiders using water colours. While it seems unlikely that her arachnid knowledge will be put to use at RSPH, her water colour painting skills certainly have. As Australia went into lockdown earlier in the year, Ali painted a series of images to accompany mental health messaging called Feeling Good at Home during COVID-19.”

“We looked around at all the health messaging and saw that it was computer generated stylised graphics,” says Ali.

“Rather than add to this collection we decided to do something no one else was doing – traditional illustrations. We specifically chose to produce calming, positive and beautiful images to complement the science behind maintaining your mental health during this challenging time.”

Ali also helped showcase the work of RSPH researchers in combatting the pandemic through the design of a COVID-19 themed magazine. And her skills as an arts communicator don’t end there, she is also an accomplished videographer and photographer.

This skill of combining art and science is enormously useful to our work at RSPH. With a remit of improving the health and wellbeing of all Australians, researchers have already taken advantage of Ali’s expertise in the art of communication.

“Art is one piece of the puzzle when communicating science,” says Ali.

“Conveying important information in an engaging, and hopefully beautiful way, can help reach a much wider audience than just the written word. I think this is especially important right now during a pandemic.”

** Check out more of Ali’s art and science communications including a Mind Seeds video animation series featuring Jo Lane, video editing, and collaborating on infographics with Erin Walsh (also part of the PHXchange team).