After having her master's thesis misused in the name of climate change denial, LAAS PhD candidate Julia Andreasen used the experience to write an article advocating for how scientists can better defend the rigor of their research against intentional misinformation.
In Julia's article, published this month in AGU's Eos magazine, she explains how her research (published in the spring of 2023) was exploited by climate change deniers online to spread misinformation about the state of the Antarctic ice shelf.
"[The] tweets inaccurately equated short-term ice shelf growth with longer-term ice sheet stability and growth, creating an intense discourse between climate change deniers, scientists, and the general public," Julia writes in the article. "As our paper went viral for all the wrong reasons, I felt the control over my research slip away."
In the years since, Julia has assembled a set of resources and strategies that she hopes will help others navigate the possible misuse of their research.
"I am grateful that my paper reached the nonacademic community, but I was unprepared for managing the willful misinformation surrounding it," she writes. "By sharing the lessons I’ve learned, along with practical resources for preventing and addressing misinformation, I hope to help other scientists avoid or at least better navigate these challenges as they strive to communicate effectively with the public."