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Strangely Educational Founder and Creative Director Dan K Pearson leading a session at the ADM+S Summer School: Creating impact: creative approaches to research translation (2024)

We use co-creation as an innovative, evidence-based method for professional and personal development.

Our training is built on a foundation of academic study and our own practice-led research.

We design and deliver training on topics as diverse as AI researchers connecting with audiences on YouTube. Neuroscientists translating complex research on TikTok. Business academics raising their profiles on LinkedIn. And innovators and entrepreneurs perfecting their pitch.

Our expertise includes public engagement and digital storytelling. Identity and impact. Research translation and creative knowledge exchange.

We’ve worked with The ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), University of Western Australia Tech and Policy Lab, Swinburne Innovation Studio, University of Technology Sydney Graduate Research School, and Griffith Business School.

“As public engagement in research becomes ever more pressing, Dan delivered an excellent introduction where students could begin to consider their voice and how they engage with video content for research communication in the future.”
Sally Storey, ADM+S

"It was a really engaging and helpful session, and I have received lots of positive feedback from our participants."
Willow Macpherson, Griffith Business School

Flagship initiative: Creator Program

Activate the knowledge community and cultivate a cohort of energised next generation public intellectuals.

Transfer knowledge. Scale research impact. And build authentic brands.

The Creator Program pursues innovation to dramatically scale dissemination, marketing and communication. It equips participants with the mindset, skills and ambition to creatively translate their work.

This is a training and development opportunity to creatively translate knowledge, share ideas, cultivate community and intersect with society in impactful ways.

The technical side of content creation has never been easier. Crafting compelling narratives that resonate with contemporary audiences has never been harder. So, the focus of the Creator Program is human-centred storytelling.

Ultimately, the program unlocks participants' engagement potential. Figures out who their audience is. And frames their work for this audience. It energises educators, researchers, leadership and marketers towards the shared goal of brand building through impact and societal transformation.

“You made me the kind of academic that I’ve aspired to be… You saw something in me that I didn’t see in me and in my work, and that’s manifested in those videos. It has been a transformative experience.”
Dr Mark Piccini

Case study: Identity and impact workshop

“Collaborating with Dan to capture a harmony between the internal expression and external impression was a joy.”
Michael, DMRC PhD Candidate

Learn more about the workshop

At the 2025 DMRC Summer School Strangely Educational ran the session Connect with your inner creative self. Participants included PhD candidates and early career researchers from across the world.

Firmly rooted in co-design methods, the workshop was part photography co-creation and part applied existentialist philosophy. The aim was to venture beyond participants’ established professional personas to explore their identities. To investigate how these identities might be manifested. And the impact of such manifestation on partcipants’ outward facing expression, and in turn their public engagement and scholarship.

Through applied professional development and learning through co-creation, participants completed the session with a deeper sense of purpose. They also received a selection of professional portrait photographs.

“The session made me realise that seriousness just suits me. Rather than try to force something else, I should just lean into my serious side a bit more. I really appreciate how the photos captured something about me that I wasn’t so sure of before.”
Faye, Curtin University PhD Candidate

“Having the camera in my face was overwhelming, but Dan's curiosity about the value I placed in each photo made me feel more comfortable. The photos are raw and honest, with no filters or posed smiles. They reflect my academic identity and tell the story of being authentic—what you see is truly who I am.”
Dana, Digital Child PhD Candidate

Free resources

Making better research videos is the crash course for educators, researchers and thought leaders to craft compelling video content.

The Making better research videos resources were designed to introduce educators, researchers and thought leaders to the process of content creation for research dissemination, translation and knowledge exchange.

The resources include exercises for anyone that wants to use creative content to connect their work with diverse audiences. Particularly academics that might lack the experience and confidence to communicate their work outside of academia.

Why not dive right in, and establish your creative persona?

Let’s do it!