Lab Logos and Visual Branding for Your Research with Dr. Makella Coudray

Dr. Makella Coudray cares about how her research shows up online. She knows that when your science is visually engaging, it can reach more people. We worked together on a number of elements that make up her visual online presence for the Sexual Health, Equity, and Empowerment Research Lab (SHEER Lab).

In this conversation, we talk about branding for your research. Specifically, her logos, social media, and what it’s like to share her online presence with people. We also chat about what prompted her to create a personal academic website and her research lab website.

A full text transcript will be added to this blog in the coming week, along with English captions for the YouTube live. Thank you!

Meet Dr. Makella S. Coudray of The SHEER Lab

Jennifer van Alstyne of The Social Academic: I am here to talk about visual branding and how you show up online as a researcher or academic. I’m delighted that my featured guest for today is Dr. Makella Coudray of the SHEER Lab. Makella, would you introduce yourself for folks?

Dr. Makella S. Coudray: I will and first of all, just thank you so much for even thinking to have me on as a guest. Hello everyone. My name is Makella Coudray. I am an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Central Florida and I’m the director of The SHEER Lab, the Sexual Health Equity and Empowerment Research Lab. I am a proud, proud national of the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Island blood runs deep through my veins. I also have maternal ties to Guyana. I am a rescue dog mom, a somewhat newlywed. We’re a year in now, so I guess it’s not that newlywed anymore and a lover of sleep. Yes, I am a nap queen.

Jennifer: I am obsessed with this introduction. No one has ever come on and been like, I am a nap queen. I love this. I feel like not only did I get a sense of your personality, but I also get what you care about in your personal life too. Oh, okay. That made me super happy. Tell me, tell everyone else about your research. What is the SHEER Lab?

Makella: The SHEER Lab broadly, as I have had to recently think through what my passion statement is. And the SHEER Lab aligns closely with that passion statement, and it’s somewhat also included in our name, the Sexual Health Equity and Empowerment Research Lab. So in line with my passion statement, my research and by extension the lab’s research looks at ensuring equitable access for sexual and reproductive health services for women of color broadly. Also in that same vein, just lending from my background as an epidemiologist and an implementation scientist. That’s why it was so important for me that second E in the SHEER Lab in terms of empowerment and trying to give back to the community we’re trying to serve. The actual resources that they would need to advance and advocate for their own sexual and reproductive health as well.

Jennifer: You mentioned resources and when I think resources, the kind of a logical answer to me is to have a stronger online presence so that your resources can help more people, so that this research can reach the people who can implement changes and practices and put it into practice.

Jennifer: I’m curious about your own journey with your online presence. Is this something that always came naturally to you? Is it something that you’ve always wanted for yourself? Where are you at?

Makella: That has been a long, long journey personally and professionally. So personally I am a very private person in general, so I think my last Instagram post on my personal Instagram page was from 2020 or in 2025. I just don’t share a lot of stuff by my own personal nature. That is just the background of who I am as a person. And once I started my academic career, I would say towards the end of my PhD, I realized that was a huge difference between me and some of my cohort counterparts. We would be at conferences and they would post the stories and I also hate taking pictures, so that’s another thing. They would take pictures and that was also just never my thing, but I started to realize it’s kind of what everyone does to promote some of their work. I think at that point the bug was placed in my mind that, “Okay, I probably need to work on this to try and share some of my research.”

Then as I started my postdoc after graduation, it’s always publish or perish, publish or perish. So I’m publishing and then I’m sharing with my family. Naturally I publish something because I’m excited and I’m proud of myself, not thinking that it was behind a paywall. And I’m forgetting which family member, it must have been one of my aunts. And she was asking, “Oh, you get paid for this? I said, “No, I don’t get paid for this. I just have the pleasure of my work being in the journal so that they can get paid for it.” And then explaining the paywall to her, I realized the people who I actually wanted to see my research: yes, my family, but the actual community I was trying to serve. They also probably can’t get to it because it’s behind a paywall.

Then it was me starting to think through, “Okay, well what’s another way I could share some of these findings cause I still have to publish because I’d very much like to remain employed.” And that’s a metric of how we are measured. If that’s going to happen regardless, I want to get paid. Outside is expensive, but I also want to share with my community, so how do I do that? Then I have to go back to the bug that I had playing in my head of, “I need to show up in some type of capacity online.” And I did make an initial attempt as a postdoc with no funds and the attempt, I will admit, was a bit lackluster.

I did create my social media handles. Did I post? No, because the same thing that happened on my personal pages happened on the professional pages that I created. And even that was a struggle, trying to decide if I wanted to post professional things on my personal page. That was a struggle and I decided to separate it.

I’m a private person and I didn’t want to conflate those two things. I did have something, but I don’t feel like I did a good job of actually sharing what I wanted to do. And in wanting to share what I wanted to do, I started doing research, which is how I came across your site, Jennifer, The Social Academic.

You had a blog post and I think it was the 10 things to Include in your academic website. And I said, “Okay, I could start with that and I can branch out,” which I did and my first website, it was okay. It could be improved, but it was okay. It still wasn’t getting across what I wanted it to get across.

So I actually reached out to you and I don’t even know if you remember how long it was I had the plan to reach out to you. I reached out to you a year in advance before we actually started working. I knew I wanted to do this. I knew it would be the key I thought to progressing some of my work, but again, postdoc and no money.

But when I accepted this little tenure track position and they blessed me with startup funds. I absolutely, I remember I even just said, “I have the money, now I have the money. Let’s meet immediately and set this up.” And that’s where I am now, with a confidence in my online presence that I did not start off with. That’s largely because of the work we were able to do in setting up my website and a whole bunch of other things.

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The importance of having a website for your professional presence as a researcher

Jennifer: Websites are so exciting and when we build them ourselves and it’s just not quite telling our story, it doesn’t feel like us or maybe sometimes we don’t have the skills to share a story in the way we’re dreaming. I think about that with video editing. My husband does a lot of video editing now and he has this skill at telling stories through video. I don’t have that. I mean, I can go on video like this, but we have skills of telling our research story, our personal story, our academic life. The mediums in which we tell it, we don’t always have the skills or capacity in a certain area. We don’t always want to build those either. I’m so happy that you reached out and frankly for anyone who’s listening, I’m happy that Makella reached out early.

It’s okay if you come to me and you’re like, “I don’t know exactly how I’m going to pay for this yet.” A lot of people don’t, and then they figure it out. They find it later on and they come back because they trust me, because we’ve had that connection together. So, it’s okay. I’m not going to judge you if you don’t have the budget right now, but I am going to help you dream. It’s so beautiful. I’m so glad you came back. The website, so you have a personal academic website, you have a research lab website. We did those two together. And then you are also on social media. Just to give people a little overview of the places that you are on, it sounds like you’re on LinkedIn and you have a professional Instagram that you don’t really use. Is that right?

Makella: That is correct. I really don’t use it and we actually did meet to talk about this in the lab this week. That I have all the handles also for the lab name as well. I have the handles for X, Facebook, and Instagram for the lab. It’s just, we don’t post anything, and we want to because I feel like there’s things going on in the lab. I have a lot of brilliant RAs, not even just on the research side. I’m really passionate about mentorship and we have RAs doing a lot of great things. One of them just got accepted to grad school and things we would obviously love to highlight and we have amazing templates to do so. It’s just we have not done it honestly.

Jennifer: I feel like that happens and I’m not that surprised that it’s happened in this sense because you already know about yourself that taking photos, posting on social media, this is something that, it doesn’t come naturally. It’s not something that you’re out being like, “Oh, I want to take all the photos,” and I get that. And so when I think about what fits into your lifestyle, the website has, that’s worked for you,

Makella: It really has to be quite honest. And I think it’s working in ways we didn’t even know. I asked one of the RAs this week, have y’all been talking about me? Because I keep getting people reaching out to work with me and I’m like, “Where are y’all finding me?” I am obviously not posting anything. And I guess when they do searches, the website comes up and so now I have too much people reaching out to me based on my capacity, but I was kind of surprised as well. The website is just working while I sleep cause they email me at all times. But the website is working while I sleep. And that takes some of, I feel like the mental load off of me specifically cause that’s not a comfortable place for me, naturally showing up online. Having the website where I can quickly just be, even when I’m onboarding RAs actually, I can quickly be like, “Well, there’s already brief summaries and everything on the website about this project. You can look at some of those materials and get back to me if you have any questions.” That also helps. Having a reference point for all of the studies is really good for me as well.

Jennifer: Yeah, I feel like my own website is a repository that I use more than anyone else does. I am always going in looking for articles on The Social Academic to send to someone or a resource or description that’s really going to help. And so I think about how many people are avoiding building their website cause it’s ‘All about me,’ but actually it’s a tool to help you too, help you in the things that you’re wanting to share, whether that’s attracting opportunities. It sounds like you’ve got a lot of them or really connecting the information your students need when they need it. Makella, would you mind sharing just a little overview of the types of opportunities that people have been reaching out about? Is it mostly students who want to work in your lab?

Makella: It mostly has been students who want to join the lab volunteer-wise, although I did have a couple people actually seeking formal employment, full-time positions like research coordinator, postdoc type of roles. They did reach out and in that case the more formal positions they were looking for was specific to grants that were on the website versus when the students reached out, they just kind of wanted to work with the lab. But those who wanted formal roles in the lab and paid, they identified actual grant projects that we had posted on the website that they wanted to work on. That was interesting.

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A favorite story about academic websites

Jennifer: Now, one thing that I know you do because you shared this with me, you actually have been open about your excitement about your website in person with people. In meetings with people, you’ll bring it up. What’s that like?

Makella: I think it depends on who I’m talking to. We recently had two new faculty join our department and I instantly was like, you got to set up your website. You got to set up your website, do it now while the startup funds are abundant. Do it now. And they’re like, “Oh yes, who is she?” And I’m like, “Yes!” Then sometimes, and I’ll admit I’ve done this too. I’ve entered spaces and I think it’s no surprise to anyone who is a woman of color. I’ve entered spaces where I am prejudged. I have, like I said, with my personality, I am not one necessarily to talk about myself.

So there have been some instances where I was prejudged in certain settings about my capabilities and I let that judgment go on for a couple meetings. And I remember one instance, we invited someone new to the group and I had to reintroduce myself and I took that as an opportunity to drop my website in the chart immediately I received all types of messages. We didn’t know you did all of this stuff. We didn’t know you had this going on. I’m like, “Then you shouldn’t have judged me.” I have used the website in my own petty endeavors on more than one occasion to subtly let people know, find something safe to do because this is not it. And the website has helped for that in a very professional manner.

Jennifer: I really like that. Ooh, that’s my favorite story anyone’s ever shared about their online presence on this show. Okay, I got to control myself. That is too good.

Research lab website walkthrough

Jennifer: I think that I was asking this question because there’s a lot of fear that people have about sharing their website once it’s published. I mean not just fear about doing it in person, but fear about putting it in their email signature or even on their social media profiles. What was that process like for you? Were you excited to share it? How does it feel when you share your website? That’s the question.

Makella: I wasn’t, when the website went live, I didn’t blast to my whole department, that website because again, it doesn’t align with my personality. But it is hyperlinked in my email signature. It is. And then all of the RAs in the lab, I also ask them to add it to their email signature. Anyone who’s formally employed with me in the lab, it’s also in their email signature. I like having it there. It’s in my automatic replies. I like sharing it in that way. And what I know would be regular communications, the website is automatically linked.

When I do have people asking me advice about things, like tenure track, I always bring it up in that setting as well. That this is something I feel like helps me with my presence and sharing my work. When it comes up in those type of conversations, “What would you advise I do?” In the beginning of tenure track, those type of discussions, I am always happy to share about the website at that point as well as at conferences. Conferences, I feel like it works for me really, really well. Especially if it’s someone new that I’m not trying to make an introduction with. I always share the website because it’s easy as well. The domain is my name, so it just kind of makes it really easy to share.

And then my website’s cute, so usually when they pull it up they’re interested in it and it’s eye-catching. And I also do the same if I’m meeting someone for the first time, like a formal zoom meeting and we are doing introductions. Usually if I’m in a group meeting and we are doing introductions for the first time, depending on how they approach me, I will drop the website link in the chat. And again, really and truly, if I feel like they’re underestimating me or trying to test me, I will slip the website in ever so subtly into the conversation to be like, “No, no, here we are.” It helps me give a voice to myself in situations where I feel like I don’t want to be as vocal or as in your face with something. I feel like it just does the work for me and I could just sit and look cute while I see their faces read the website on the Zoom.

Jennifer: That is really special because I feel like there’s so many people who avoid sharing their website because they feel like it is too much me me me. It’s calling attention to me. But really, you see it as this invitation: “Hey, you can go explore this and learn what I really do.” It’s speaking for you. I love that. I’m going to see if you’re okay with it. I would love to share my screen and see if we can show the website. What do you think?

Makella: Yes!!

Jennifer: Now folks, I’ve never done this before on this program. Let me see if I can make this work. Give me one sec. Okay, I think this is it. Yes, it’s sharing the screen. Okay, so this is Makella’s personal academic website. You can see there are all sorts of things on here in terms of color.

We have the SHEER Lab logo, we have Dr. Makella Coudray’s name, and it really kind of has its own vibe compared to the SHEER Lab website. Some similar elements, but it has its own branding and color scheme and we can learn about the lab and explore the research that they’re doing. Actually, there’s a page not found. We should go check that.

Grant terminated by the NIH, but should I keep it on my website?

Makella: That was me updating stuff. I have to fix it. That was me updating stuff and I don’t know if you want to talk about it. I actually didn’t tell you, the STRiP grant. It got terminated by NIH [National Institutes of Health].

Jennifer: Oh no, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear that. This is happening all over and it’s so unfortunate. And I think this is one of the helpful things about websites, is that when something happens and we need to make a change, that’s adaptable. So Makella, after this call, I can help you relink those buttons, but the point is that your website can have project space for you to share more of your research story, which I love.

Makella: I struggled with that because, I mean it’s terminated and there isn’t, it’s not something that’s happened en masse as we’re seeing now. I’m like, “How do I convey this in a way to make it understandable to the readers?” Yes, we did some of this work and we can no longer continue this work. And I think I have more freedom to do that with the website.

I have been asked why didn’t I just stick to our department? Our department gives us a faculty page and I was like, “Yes, they do.” And I can’t stand my faculty page right now and I’ve asked for it to be changed at least three times and it hasn’t been changed. This is, unlike that page, I can go into WordPress and I can edit my stuff on my own if I wanted to make a change. And now we have new RAs joining this semester, so I asked them and we met on Friday for everyone to send me, the new RAs to send me their bios so that I can add them to the website. If I had to go through university-run website, no. Plus I’m bossy. I like to do my own thing. It’s just easier if I could do it myself.

Jennifer: There’s actually a lot of folks who have come to me because they have an existing webpage. Not just a profile, but a whole website on their university website and it just has so many limitations. You can’t really have the design that you want or share all the resources that you want or some of the things you want to embed or link maybe aren’t allowed by the university website. For example, story maps. And so I think of all of these tools and resources that we can implement on a website if it’s outside of that system. But I also think just, and this is not for you, but for so many folks, you never know how your life is going to change. There are so many opportunities for you to keep that long-term online presence by having your website space that you own and control that can adapt with you over time. I’m happy you did that for yourself.

Makella: I did. And I actually have both the personal and the lab website linked on my faculty page. Although I don’t like the faculty page, it’s hyperlinked.

Cause I’m like, “Look at the real stuff over there on my actual website.

Jennifer: Makella, we can chat about this later, but honestly I would love for other people to hear it, which is I wouldn’t remove your research project from your site entirely. I probably just leave it as is and add a note that says that this grant was terminated by the NIH. Just be open about it if that’s something that you’re legally allowed to do.

Makella: It’s on my CV.

Jennifer: I don’t like hiding things. If there’s something that you’re proud of, if there’s something that mattered to you and your team. There’s something that you would be working on if you had the funding, I wouldn’t remove it. And so yeah, that would be my advice. Yeah, sorry. Okay, back to the-

Makella: You’re absolutely right. The website is on my to-do list for this month to, well also because we talked about this too: routine updates to the website and I have it scheduled for this month and that’s why I was asking the RAs to send me their updated bios. I have that routine update scheduled for me to go through the website and make my updates. And also it’s the start of this semester in thinking through what things we wanted to focus on and I wanted to put that up on the website as well.

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What Makella loves about working with Jennifer van Alstyne

Jennifer: I love that. Well, your service actually came with a follow-up consultation where we can walk through updates together. Once you have your student bios, set up that time with me and we can get it done.

But for everyone who’s listening, if you’re at the start of your website project and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I have the funds. I don’t if I have the time, I don’t if I have any of these things.” A website, it’s a big project, it can be a big project. You can also go to Owlstown and create a free simple website today. There’s options for you. But if you are looking to be more intentional about your website, there’s lots of resources to help you on The Social Academic blog.

While I’d love to work with you, you don’t need to work with me to create this space for yourself online.

Makella: If I can follow up on that, I did originally have a WordPress site that I started with that I made myself. And that was the basis of what Jennifer and I expanded on to get the website to where it is today.

My opinion, just find Jennifer and do the website. [My previous website?] it was a website I could post stuff, but even my best friend, God bless her, we have a relationship where we were brutally honest. Once I was done at the website, obviously next to my husband, she was the first person I sent it to and her immediate response was, ‘I don’t know who did this, but this does not look like you.’ And I was like, “Okay, thank you.” Alright.

Jennifer: You’re like, “I did this myself.”

Makella: Exactly. I had a candid conversation with her and I was like, “Well, I didn’t want to be too much of me because it’s supposed to be a professional thing.” And in my head I’m like, “It’s supposed to be stated and reserved,” but she knowing my personality was expecting all of the things. And when she didn’t see that and very plain, almost black and white page, she was like, “Oh no, what is this? What is this?” And I was like, “I don’t know, I’m just trying to show up.” At that point, I was trying to show up how I thought I was expected to as an academic and it just truly wasn’t aligning with who I am as a person.

Why Makella leaned into visual branding in how she shows up online

Jennifer: I have had professors come to me and be like, “I want an old school black and white academic website that doesn’t look like I put any design into it, but that shares my stuff.” I’m like, “I’m happy to design that website,” but I love that Makella wanted something that was visually matching her personality.

That didn’t just tell her story, but it showed the vibrancy of what it’s like to work on this team, to collaborate with her, to engage with this research. And so I’m curious, you actually cared more about your logo and your visual branding than almost anyone I’ve worked with. It’s surprising for me to hear that this was not a lifetime goal for you. You started out being like, “I don’t want to share myself online.” Where was that shift? Where was that moment? Was it talking with your friend that you decided I need to lean into me?

Makella: It was — to some extent, is because that’s my right hand lady. But also truthfully, it was therapy. I started therapy around the same time for some post-traumatic stress I was going through for a situation and in therapy, uncovering that, I essentially, for lack of a better phrase, was dimming my light to kind of conform to what I thought I was expected to be at that time as an academic and then truly forgetting that, ‘I am she and she is me.’ And just trying to lean back into some of that power because I feel like a lot of it was lost sadly when I left home and moved to the US. The culture is different. And then I had never been in this academic setting cause that’s not culturally how we are back home.

My best friend that I was talking to, she is familiar with the me of back home and who I am and she was like, “Oh no, that’s not how you’re showing up now honey.” And then looking through it in therapy as well, I realized I really was not showing up as my authentic self because I was worried my authentic self did not match with what an academic was expected to be. And at that time I’m like, I moved my whole life across continents at that point to come here. There’s no way I’m going to fail. If this is the box that they expect me to be in, I guess I’ll just be in the box cause there is no way I’m going to fail. And then there’s just coming to the realization in therapy, me being my authentic self was not me failing. It’s just academic, stuffy sometimes and that has nothing to do with me.

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Creating the Sexual Health Equity and Empowerment Research (SHEER) Lab logo

Jennifer: Being myself is not me failing. I love that. So many people force themselves to stay in that box when it comes to their visual identity and branding online. And for your logo, you wanted a logo that represented sexual health, that represented the body. What sparked your thinking that really, actually leaning into that was the right choice for your logo?

Makella: It was a hundred percent of, I think it’s my personality. I operate, I don’t want to call it silent communication, but I just personally don’t like talking a lot. And the logo I viewed as and after this podcast, they’re going to be like, “She don’t like talking a lot?” Really and truly, I don’t guys, for real. It’s cause I like Jennifer. But for me, I knew the logo would’ve been, I don’t want to say the face because it’s a logo, but it essentially would have represented everything I wanted my work to be. And at that time, because we started working literally when I started the tenure track position, and at that time I was also doing the Thrive Institutes program for professional development and really hashing out what I wanted to essentially be as an academic researcher now that I’m entering this phase of independence and could chart my own course for research.

And I realized that leaned very strongly to women’s sexual health. And then I said, and it encompasses a whole umbrella of subtopics: STI testing, maternal health. But it really came back to that overall women’s sexual and reproductive health. And I said, what is more women than the female form? And then personally being a curvy sister myself, I wanted the logo to what I felt would be representative, one of me as a person, and two of the research that I wanted to do. And I just felt like leaning into it cause I know we went through a couple iterations and I honestly love the one that was the butt.

Jennifer: We did have a logo draft of a butt. I mean it was like butt shaved. It was really cute.

Makella: And I can actually pull it down now cause I still have it in my office. Not the butt because the butt’s at home in the other office. But this was a gift from one of my friends when I was accepted the tenure track position because she also from our conversations, knew the type of work I wanted to do. And she said she saw this and she thought of me and I immediately was like, “This is it. This is it!” And this is where I feel like we took the body from. And then with the hair of it, and I’m actually now realizing my hair is similar to the logo today. That was completely unplanned. But for the hair, I really wanted to use hair that was textured or curly in nature because a lot of my work is with women of color. And I felt like for me it was those subtle cues in the logo that I felt that could speak to some of the work that I was doing without me having to do it. Cause I feel like you see the logo and you know what’s up.

Jennifer: That is true. It is like an immediate understanding or this is about women’s bodies. I get it. If you are someone who’s listening to this and you’re like, “I want a logo, I’m thinking about having a logo for my research, but I have no idea where to start,” you’re not alone. There’s so many people who need support with that visual branding identity and you really don’t have to work with me for this. I love working with Makella because we’re working on her website together and it really made a difference for telling her story. But to be honest, the majority of my clients are not prioritizing logo in their dreams for their research lab. If that’s something that you want-

Makella: Really?

Jennifer: Yes, really you were a standout for that. And it’s not that logo wasn’t important to you, it was something you wanted for your website.

But I remember we did the quick logo during your Website VIP Day, and it was text only and it looks nice, but it didn’t represent that kind of immediate, ‘Ooh, I know what this is about,’ feeling that we have from the new logo. That’s why we ended up really working together and creating something that was more substantially representative of your research. But we did start out from that original quick logo, something that was simple that was going to work, and I think that’s where the majority of research labs are at. Something that’s going to work. Sometimes the university will create it for you, but the people who are wanting to be more intentional, if you have an idea like Makella did with her amazing vase, if you have an object or a specific, I don’t know, chemical compound in your research or maybe work with a specific country or population, there’s so many different things that could spark what your logo eventually becomes that if you have an idea, write it down now. You don’t need to work with me on your logo, but write down the idea because that’s something that is the hardest part to start. And I’m so glad that we got to work together on your logo.

Makella: I absolutely loved it. I always saw the logo for me representing the work, which is why I did a lot of this at the beginning of my tenure track journey.

Branding materials for The SHEER Lab

Makella: I don’t know if you want to talk about it outside of the logo, I was also really persistent on having a lot of other branded materials. I wanted it to be very clear that everything we produced in the lab was the content of the lab, and I mean PowerPoint slide templates, our templates for social media posts. I wanted it to be very clear and cohesive in its messaging because at that time it was something I was coming to terms with. That messaging was something I had to lean into and I wanted to build up a voice for the lab, that we were messaging about these specific things. So from the time you see the logo, you already know what it’s going to be about and you also have a sense of trust with it too, is what the plan is. We are working on it with the posting. But that was the intent of me wanting really to get behind the logo and a lot of those branded materials.

Jennifer: Yeah, that was a really fun VIP Day. Makella and I did 3 VIP Days together. The first two were website focused, one for her research lab website, one for her personal academic website. But the third one, I actually got to come in and talk with the students and the team, and we talked about actually implementing some of these visual branding elements into sharing the research online. In some instances, maybe those templates weren’t that used on social media, but there was a PowerPoint template, a flyer, there was a poster presentation template.

Makella: We used that. We have an RA giving a presentation September 23rd. So we use that. We actually use the recruitment flyer template for studies. IRB approved it, everything. We used that and also, I don’t know what you call it, you gave me the palette with the colors and those hex codes I think it’s called. Now in the lab when we do stuff, we use those exact colors.

Jennifer: I’m so happy.

Makella: Even if it’s not a templated thing. I think I asked one of the RAs to do a lit review template and we did the lit review template with those colors from, so even stuff that we are just doing in the lab, we use everything with the branding and I adore it. Even our, we have branded lab materials. I don’t have any close by. It’s hard to see, but we have the logo on our pens. I did tote bags. Actually-

Jennifer: I should’ve brought my stuff.

Makella: I have the tote bag.

Jennifer: Oh, you have one!

Makella: Yep. And so we did a whole bunch of branded stuff with the logo and in the colors as well. All of that, again, with the same vein of, ‘I’m in community.’ So when we do community events, we have stuff to give out and I always wanted stuff to be, that it would be useful. Pens obviously, but these bags, really good quality cotton tote bags, reusable. We had wireless chargers, tumblers all with the logo in our colors.

Jennifer: That was my favorite, the insulated tumbler. I was like, “Oh my god, this is a high quality one. I want to use this.” Oh, Makella, I wanted to ask, your students actually participated in the logo process. They checked out the designs. What was that like to share those with your students?

Makella: That was interesting, and it’s also, again, not typical academic. It’s kind of how I run the lab. We make decisions together. Even when a new RA wants to join the lab, we all vote before a new RA joins the lab. It’s not just me. I felt in the same vein since they were essentially, they were the initial cohort of the lab and I felt like, “Well, they should have a voice to it too.” So we went through that process together.

It looked like Jennifer would send me the mockups and then at our next lab meeting, I mean obviously I have my own thoughts, but at the next lab meeting we would all talk about it. And it was a formal system actually. We would talk about it. Everyone give their pros and cons, but so that no one would feel pressured they would email me what they voted for after the fact, and then I would just tally it up. And thank the Lord. They all agreed with me, but there were a couple that opposed cause the butt one was popular. I’m telling you, it was a real close call between the butt one and this [the logo] one. It was really close because we had to have a second deliberation because it was so close. But eventually we went with the female form.

But yeah, it was an interesting process to have them involved. And then also, having them involved helped because some of the lab is a bit younger than me and just kind of wanting to appeal to all levels. And then at that time, we had a research coordinator in the lab, and she was older than I am. So kind of across the board how they perceived things. And we were all of different backgrounds in the lab as well. So I identify as Afro-Caribbean, but we had some people in the lab who identified as Latina and American. And so it was just kind of varied to see the different opinions. cause I also wanted to see how it would resonate with other women as well when we were picking some of the things. Even with the color selection and everything. It worked out really well.

Jennifer: I’m so happy about that because there’s a lot of people who are excited about their visual branding, but they kind of do it alone, even if they hope that other people can be part of that journey. I’m so happy you included your students in that process. And I had a lot of fun working with them on our online-

Makella: Thank my husband too.

Jennifer: Yes, your husband. That’s right!

Makella: I think you heard him in one of our follow-up meetings because I remember when we did the one like this, he wanted the hips to be wider in one of the visions, and he heard me talking to you. He wanted to make sure you knew that he wanted the hips to be wider in the final logo.

Jennifer: I remember that. We actually, I think he came over and we all kind of looked at it together and looked at the different proportions because sometimes these minute details, they do make the difference for that final logo. They do help it feel more like you. And so I’m so glad that we had all of this different feedback to help us create the logo that exists now in the world.

Makella: And I love it. I absolutely love it.

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The Thrive Institutes for Professional Development

Jennifer: Makella, you mentioned the Thrive Institute. Can you chat a little bit about that?

Makella: Yeah, so it’s a program run by Jasmine Abrams. She calls it the Faculty Development Accelerator. And it’s for academics who want to try and improve the academic success while maintaining work-life balance. And I did that at the same time we started working on the website and she actually has a module in there that speaks to how we maintain our online presence and leveraging it for sharing our work.

It just kind of felt like reinforcement of the path that I was already on, which was helpful because it was out of my comfort zone to really make the push, be online, and then having someone else say exactly the same thing that Jennifer was telling me, but from a different perspective of, “This is essential for our research and also is essential for our commitment to the community to give back information,” and not just to do research with them and not feed back into that community.

The combination of going through The Social Academic and having my website done through that, and then having reinforcement from the Thrive Institutes program, and also practical ways of what we should share online and how to show up through that, it just kind of coalesced. And I think was really, really helpful for me because all of that happened in my first semester on tenure track, and I think it helped lay a solid foundation for me of what I think my path would be going forward, showing up online.

Jennifer: I really appreciate you sharing that. I should have Jasmine on this show because I feel like-

Makella: You should! She’s amazeballs. Lemme tell you.

Jennifer: Oh, I love it. Okay, I’m definitely going to invite her. I’m sending an invitation tomorrow, so it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen.

Makella: Yea!

Jennifer: Jasmine, if you’re listening to this, please come on the show.

Makella: I can talk to her. I’m an affiliate of the Thrive Institute, so I can, I don’t know who’s actually-

Jennifer: I’m going to name drop you when I-

Makella: Yeah, when you send her a message. I can send you the links to her programs and stuff. Jasmine is amazing and she also does a better job than me cause I follow her Instagram of actually showing up online, and she has a unique perspective of being yes, an academic. She’s a research scientist at Yale, but also she posts a lot about academic entrepreneurship and actually running businesses as well as an academic. Yeah, I think she’ll be great for the podcast.

Jennifer: Very cool. I’m going to definitely email.

Makella: Maybe we should tag team and do the whole thing. This is, I’m popping my podcast cherry right now.

Jennifer: That would be so cool.

Makella: That’ll be so fun.

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Worried about showing up online, professors? Just start

Jennifer: Oh, so many collaborations. Okay, so before we wrap up, Makella, I would love for people to be able to get in touch with you afterwards. But first, is there anything you want to add before we get to that?

Makella: I do want to add one thing. For anyone who might be like me and worried about showing up online. And don’t get me wrong, it is scary. And some days I do reread about 10, 15 times before I’m like, “Okay, this is good to go.” But I think the benefits of it absolutely outweigh the fear. And if you are on the edge, “Should I do this, should I not?” I encourage you to just go wholeheartedly into it. Start some way.

Start with something. Just start. It’s okay if you have, just start wherever you are and then you can build on it because that’s what I did. I started with, I just did a regular WordPress template, edited a few things and I just had it up there. And then thank the goodness, Jennifer came in and got me to where I needed to be. But I would say just go ahead and just start. You thank yourself in the long run. It’s really helpful.

Jennifer: Any small change you make has potential to really impact the people that you want to help, but also to invite people to hear your story the way you want it to be told. Any small change does make a difference. Makella, how can people get in touch with you after this?

Makella: Oh, they can look up my website https://makellascoudray.com because we do have a contact us link. If you wanted to reach out via email, it’s [email protected] That’s my university, University of Central Florida. I am also on social media, though I don’t post a lot. And it’s the same handle across all platforms, @makellascoudray on X, Instagram, and Facebook.

Jennifer: I love it. Makella, thank you so much for coming on the show and I am excited that we’ll get to catch up again soon on Zoom!

Makella: Thank you so much for having me.

Jennifer: Thank you!