Neera got in touch with me after completing a qualitative study looking at the experience of medical students who identified as disabled, taangata whaikaha, neurodivergent and/or living with a chronic illness or condition. A sensitive but important topic, we settled on a comic as the best way to showcase the stories that students had shared with her.

I created three fictional characters to represent the diverse voices contained in the interviews, making sure that they felt authentic to the real students who had partaken. The characters were checked with Neera’s student cohort before creating the comic, eliciting very positive feedback. Trying to summarise Neera’s research themes while still giving voice to the students was a fun and interesting challenge.