Hi everyone! My name is Julia Caterino and I am a rising senior at the University of Pittsburgh. I am majoring in Media & Professional Communications with a minor in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS). This summer I have the honor of participating in the Brackenridge Fellowship through the David C. Frederick Honors College. I will be conducting an independent research project under the guidance of my incredible scholar mentor, Dr. Bridget Keown!

My research centers around TikTok #WhatIEatInADay videos, a trend heavily influenced by diet culture and unrealistic beauty standards. Throughout the summer, I will be exploring how diet culture has existed in different forms of American mass media from the early twentieth century to the present day. I will also be studying how social media perpetuates long-standing trends of diet culture from the past while introducing new patterns that are unique to the digital age. I believe this research is so important because social media is constantly evolving – TikTok itself has only been an international platform since 2016. In exploring the history of diet culture in mass media and comparing it to present-day platforms such as TikTok, we can learn about the cultural changes that the social media age has brought on. I also believe there is great value in bridging my different fields of interest, including food, gender, and media studies.

As for my professional goals, I will also be devoting this summer to my application for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. My goal is to pursue a master’s at King’s College London in 2025 after graduating from Pitt. The Fulbright program would provide me with the means to study abroad post-graduation and continue honing my skills as a media scholar in one of the most diverse cities in the world, London! I am deeply passionate about travel. I studied abroad in Florence, Italy on Pitt’s Food Studies program during May of 2023. The program was GSWS-focused, and we learned about the politics of gender and food. I studied the role that women have played historically in the global food system at all stages – production, distribution, and consumption. I also learned about the ways that social constructs, such as gender, influence the human diet. My experience in the Food Studies program serves as the inspiration for my Brackenridge research project. I hope to continue building on this work in the future, hopefully as a U.S. Fulbright scholar. I believe this fellowship will give me valuable research experience, preparing me for postgraduate learning and a final dissertation!