Because I work with dermatologists-- people who are medical practitioners, scientists, and often academics-- it is difficult to separate academia from the "beyond" in my research. I would like to engage in my work with the assumption of a dual audience. I aim to produce work for both my own academic audience of anthropologists and STSers, as well as the dermatologists with whom I work, with the assumption that my research participants and the broader group they represent might read some of both types of work. This involves two sorts of theories of change. The first is that my social science-inflected work will invoke critical self reflections and fit what is happening in the field of dermatology into a broader social context that is relevant and useful for dermatologists who may be interested in improving their field as an intellectual space. The second theory of change revolves around a different writing practice that may involve conducting research and publishing articles with dermatologists in my capacity as a qualitative researcher or from a public health perspective (I have a background in public health). In this way, my work and writing might be translated directly into clinical practices by providing recommendations or helping physicians to think through standards for clinical practice. I think overall, what I want is for my research to go beyond "thinking about dermatologists" to also sometimes "thinking with dermatologists" who are scientists, experts, academics, and technologists, but at the end of the day also do the work of caring for real patients.
