Kerry Grist

Ensuring an installed object is level in my previous job, as Collections Assistant for the Science Museum's Medicine Galleries

Giving a tour of the store room that houses lab medicine, biotechnology & biochemistry collection to other project teams.

A labelled object after cataloguing, showing the barcodes used to ease object tracking during the move. This is a jar from a mid 20th century bacteriological testing kit that had to be split into 79 records to account for each separate, removable part.

A group of objects that required investigation in order to identify what they were, and find the record on our database that accounted for them. Often it is not always immediately obvious what an object is! It turned out to be a collection of parts relating to Rain Erosion, Raindrop damage and Hail damage to high speed aircraft that were used at RAE Farnborough.

I'm often working in store rooms rather than in a static office, as the role requires object contact. Sometimes you have to take a moment to assess whether the equipment you plan to use is actually an object!

Assessing and moving objects in the telecommunications storage room. The objects are a set of 'cybernetic iBots' made my the University of Reading for a past exhibition. They demonstrate three cybernetic programmed behaviours: 'tag', 'herding' and 'follow me'.

“I was diagnosed with dyspraxia quite late - at 22 - and suddenly everything made much more sense. I had always struggled with maths and science, so I naturally took the academic route of humanities. The OU allowed me to study a range of subjects for my degree, but I definitely felt I wasn't 'good enough' to study a STEM subject. However, my main passion is the history of medicine, so my academic paths did cross. Now STEM is my everyday!

It might seem surprising that somebody handles museum objects for a living when dyspraxics are stereotypically ‘clumsy’, but actually I think it makes me much more careful. Dyspraxia has forced me to create many coping mechanisms, and I have learnt how to overcome issues with attention to detail and organisation over the years. It has also made me very determined and able to think outside the box, which helps as my day-to-day requires so much problem-solving and investigation!

Working at the Science Museum has shown me that I am capable of understanding science! I do not have a scientific background, but I currently work across all collections so I am often faced with needing to learn about an object’s scientific history very quickly without any contextual knowledge. My eyes have opened to the ways in which more neurodiverse audiences need to be considered with science communication, and I hope this is something I can help to improve in the future.

You can follow my adventures at the Museum on instagram: https://bit.ly/3ee37ii”

Instagram: @kerryland102

Twitter: @kerryland101