Which institute did you choose for your fellowship?
It was the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna – a very young institute with young science. It was great to be there because it opened my eyes to this whole new science – Complexity Science. Each of the faculty works on their speciality of complex systems. These range from One Health, which involves a lot of medical data, agriculture and environmental parameters, to the complex system of polarization and parliaments in democracies. At CSH there are very theoretical people who work on the maths and the physics of a complex system. During the fellowship, I kept asking ‘what is complexity science?’ The answer is different depending on who you speak to.
A lot of the work that is applied is complemented by fundamental mathematicians and physicists. Those groups look at Complexity Science as finding hidden patterns. I was confronted with the burden on Complexity Science to make predictions – which it can do but that is not all it is. For example, cities are complex systems, as are supply chains. These systems are predictable to a good extent, but there are also more philosophical questions that complexity science can address, for example, understanding AI, how we do science or how do humans think?
What have you learned?
I interviewed about 25 scientists there at all levels, and I think I learned what complexity science is and where it could go. I am currently writing a pitch on why India needs complexity science because there are some scientists scattered all over the country who I got to know about, and it would be really good to see complexity science growing in the Indian context.
What has the fellowship meant for you?
Firstly, it helped me really plug myself back into science communication after giving birth and having the time off. As a woman in science journalism, it was helpful to bring all of the richness of the scientific community back into my mind and life. It helped me get back to work, back to thinking about pitching and back to researching.
I am very happy that I could really witness a newish way to do science thanks to advances in data science, AI and network science. As a science journalist one can get comfortable in one’s own sphere. It was great to stop thinking about gender in science at least for those three to four months. The fellowship pushed me into a world where research is fundamentally interdisciplinary. I am very grateful for that.
Why did you become a journalist?
I have been a science journalist since 2010, though I’ve also been involved with various science communication projects since I was doing my Masters and working for a biopharmaceutical company. My teachers had always pointed me in the direction of media. It did not immediately come to me, but by the end of my M.Tech in Biotechnology in India I was sure.
What have been your career highlights?
Wow, that is hard because looking back I see many stepping stones, some bigger and some smaller. And I hope for many more to come. Three years ago I co-authored the book titled Lab Hopping. It won an UNFPA Laadli Media Award in 2023 and was published by Penguin, hence it is available throughout the world. It was the culmination of a big project that I had been working on with my friends and colleagues at TheLifeofScience.com since 2015. The book is a product of about 200 interviews across the country we conducted, and comments on the lack of inclusive culture in the Indian science community.
During this project, I deeply examined the culture of science and started to question it from my standpoint of a marginalized Indian person across lines of caste, gender and sexuality. Who is a scientist, and who is also the benefactor of the science we do in India and globally? Working on that book and the project have expanded my horizons as a science communicator!
More recently the fellowship at the Complexity Science Hub feels like a jump into something bigger. It has shifted the scales of how I am thinking about the trajectories of global science and science journalism. It is a milestone, but I do not see all of it yet.
When you write about science do you cover the broader aspects as well as discoveries?
A very small amount of my reporting has been on new papers, and that was only early in my career. As I moved forward, I started to ponder on the self-correcting ideals of science and the gaps currently present in the ground realities. I consider myself a part of the science community, and a lot of our tools and methods are still inaccessible to one another – there are silos, and we need to keep multiple discussions going.
My science journalism connects those dots and attempts to make bridges even between the realms of different scientific disciplines and different labs. It also connects with the wider society, and I am very interested in the perception and scepticism of science that is growing in the West, and you can see some of it also in India.
Along with discoveries we also need to talk about broader aspects of science, especially since scepticism about science is increasing. Keeping the dialogue going on how science connects with various aspects of our societies is one way to solve the problem.
Do you see cultural differences across countries in science journalism?
When I work across borders – with Austrian labs or with Indian labs – the cultures are so starkly different! Science communication in India is still seen as something that is nice to do if you can find time for it, or out of the goodness of your heart, or privilege. It’s hard to make a living of it, and there are not that many jobs to go around. There is a great community that is growing with some groundbreaking reporting in magazines and newspapers.
In Europe it is a lot more supported as a profession, and even inside institutes engaging with science journalists is facilitated by well-staffed press offices. It is less of a hassle.
