Random Walks

In this episode, I converse with Zuri Sullivan, an HHMI Hanna H. Gray Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Catherine Dulac’s lab at Harvard University. Zuri earned an AB in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard and then pursued her interests in global health and host-microbe interactions as a Fulbright Scholar at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV in Durban, South Africa. Wanting to delve deeper into the biology of host defense, Zuri earned a PhD in Immunobiology as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Yale University under the auspice of Prof. Ruslan Medzhitov.

In this episode, I converse with Prof. Prachee Avasthi, an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. She completed a PhD in neuroscience under the supervision of Wolfgang Baehr at the University of Utah and a Postdoc with Wallace Marshall at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Prachee started her own research group at the University of Kansas Medical Center before moving to Dartmouth in 2020 and she also serves on the Board of Directors of eLife and is the incumbent President of ASAPbio (Accelerating Science and Publication in biology), a non-profit initiative promoting innovation and transparency via preprints and open peer review.

Prachee's group uses the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to study the formation of the cellular antenna, the cilium, and how its assembly is coordinated with other cellular processes. We indulge in a terrific conversation on her phenomenal journey through science and life; being exposed to research as an undergrad and graduate school in neuroscience; wonderful mentors who have inspired her and making mistakes by the plenty; the fun and collaborative aspects of science; the importance of fundamental research; actively reforming science and scientific publication through preprints and fixing the broken pipeline; communicating science through Twitter and stitching unexpectedly remarkable collaborations; and many more things!!

In this episode, I converse with Bharath Ramsundar, the creator of The DeepChem Project. Bharath received a BA and BS from UC Berkeley in EECS and Mathematics and was valedictorian of his graduating class in mathematics. He went on to finish a PhD in computer science at Stanford University where he studied the application of deep-learning to problems in drug-discovery, and was sponsored by the very prestigious Hertz Fellowship and advised by Prof. Vijay Pande. After his PhD, Bharath co-founded Computable, a startup that built better tools for collaborative dataset management.

At Stanford Bharath created The DeepChem Project that seeks to create high quality, open source tools for drug discovery, materials science, quantum chemistry, and biology. We indulge in a fantastic conversation on his early fascination with quantum computing and artificial intelligence that inspired him to embark on his incredible journey in science; starting grad school as the deep learning revolution took off; how both academia and English monarchy are in need of urgent reforms; prescient insights on global manufacturing, geopolitics, and immigration; the revolutionary aspects of technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and the need to mitigate bias in these systems; and many more things!!

In this episode, I converse with Prof. Ratnesh Jain, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Prof. Prajakta Dandekar, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Institute of Chemical Technology. Ratnesh and Prajakta completed their graduate studies at ICT and went on to complete a Postdoctoral  Fellowship at  Saarland University in Germany before joining the faculty at their alma mater. 

Ratnesh and Prajakta direct the Nanomedicine Research Group at ICT and their interests straddle drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, and nanomedicine. We indulge in a fascinating conversation on their incredible journey in science; terrific mentors who have guided them; taking rejections in their strides; the joys and perils of doing science in India and together as a duo; the contours of industry-academia scientific collaboration; academics challenges plaguing the Indian university system at large; and many more things!!

In this episode, I converse with Prof. Stacy Malaker, an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Yale University. Stacy completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and went on to receive her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Virginia under Prof. Donald Hunt where she focused on enrichment and mass spectrometric identification of glycopeptides presented by the MHC class I and II processing pathways. She further continued to investigate the role of aberrant glycosylation in cancer as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi’s lab at Stanford University and used mass spectrometry and glycobiology to investigate mucinase activity on glycoproteins.

Stacy seeks to develop methods that allow for mass spectrometry (MS) analysis of mucin-domain glycoproteins, a class of densely O-glycosylated extracellular proteins. We talk about her incredible journey in science; blazing a trail through academia whilst being a first generation college student; outstanding mentors like Don Hunt, a legendary figure in mass spectrometry, and Carolyn Bertozzi, a pioneer of glycobiology; fascinating research on mucins and the keys they hold to tackling various diseases like cancer and cystic fibrosis, glycoproteomics; sagacious advice to young and upcoming scientists; and many more things!!

In this episode, I converse with Dr. Ritu Raman, a Bioengineer and a Postdoc in the renowned Langer Lab at MIT, funded by a Ford Foundation Fellowship and a L’Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship. Prior to that, Ritu completed her Undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering, with a minor in Biomedical Engineering, from Cornell University and received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering as an NSF Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ritu is a member of the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 Class of 2019 and the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2018. Her upcoming book on Biofabrication, published by MIT Press, will be out in Fall 2021. 

Ritu currently focuses on designing responsive materials and devices for translational medical applications. We indulge in a terrific conversation on her fantastic journey in science; growing up in a family of engineers and initial interests of becoming an astronaut; fantastic mentors like Rashid Bashir and Bob Langer; confronting the ubiquitous imposter syndrome; integrating novel responsive biohybrid materials into implantable devices and prosthetics; translatability and quickness being antithetical to each other in medicine; and many more things!! 

In this episode, I chat with Prof. Anant Kapdi, an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Dyes at the Institute of Chemical Technology. He received his PhD in 2008 under the supervision of Dr. Fairlamb at York University and completed a postdoc in the research group of Prof. Lutz Ackermann at the Georg-August-University Gottingen as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow before joining the faculty at the Institute of Chemical Technology. He also served as the inaugural Deputy Director of the Institute of Chemical Technology. 

Prof. Kapdi's research focuses on the development of synthetically efficient processes using novel metallacycles. We indulge in a fantastic conversation on his incredible journey in science and chemistry in particular; terrific mentors who have influenced and inspired him; groundbreaking research at the frontiers of palladium chemistry; translational research and the importance of industry-academia collaboration; donning administrative roles and helping build a new institute; founding the Innovation & Sustainability Chemistry Consortium (ISCC) to answer the pressing challenges of the day; and many more things!!

In this episode, I converse with Dr. Maggie Miller, an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Mathematics at MIT. Maggie obtained her Ph.D. in 2020 at Princeton University advised by David Gabai and earned her Undergraduate degree in Mathematics with high honours at the University of Texas at Austin, completing a thesis under the auspice of Cameron Gordon. Beginning in July 2021, Maggie will be joining the distinguished Stanford Science Fellows and also hold the prestigious Clay Research Fellowship. 

Maggie's research interest lies in low dimensional geometric topology where she has tremendously advanced the understanding of manifolds in dimensions 3 and 4, powerfully wielding a wide range of creative techniques -- algebraic, combinatorial, geometric and topological. We chat about her early interests in mathematics and art while being homeschooled; early explorations in topology in an attempt to understand the old joke about a donut and coffee cup being equivalent; attending grad school at Princeton, working with terrific mentors like Gabai, and participating in the Noetherian Ring; interests in knitting, rubik's cubes, crosswords, and acrostics; diversity and representation of underrepresented groups in mathematics; and many more things! 

In this episode talk with Ashvni Narayanan, a Graduate Student at the London School of Geometry and Number Theory working under the auspice of Prof. Kevin Buzzard. Ashvni studied Galois representations of elliptic curves during her Master's at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver advised by Prof. Sujatha Ramadorai, and completed a Bachelor's in Mathematics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore. 

Ashvni currently works on formalizing algebraic number theory in a program called Lean. We converse about her incredible random walks through life and science; her terrific mentors who've inspired her; automating mathematical theorem proving: nature of research and collaborations in a (post) pandemic world; taking care of one's mental, physical, and emotional health in academia; the fantastic Hmm podcast she started during the lockdown; and many more things! 

Resources to learn about the Xena Project and Lean: 

https://xenaproject.wordpress.com/useful-links/

https://leanprover-community.github.io/learn.html

In the eighteenth episode of Random Walks, I had a fantastic time conversing with Raghu Mahajan, who's currently a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Raghu won a Gold Medal at the International Physics Olympiad and went on to start an Undergraduate degree in Computer Science at IIT Delhi before transferring to MIT where he double majored in Mathematics and Physics. Prior to starting his PhD in Theoretical Physics at Stanford University advised by Sean Hartnoll, he completed Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge University where he was a Gates-Cambridge Scholar. 

Raghu’s research focuses on techniques used for strongly interacting field theories, with a view toward dynamics, holography, and quantum gravity. We indulge in a fascinating conversation about his three inspirational mentors: his father, Prof. Arvind Chauhan and Prof. Vijay Singh; getting taught by legendary professors and scientists at MIT; researching on string theory, black hole information paradox, and his time with the formidable group at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; majoritarianism; the importance of funding fundamental research and fostering scientific temper in society; the ridiculous notion of science being an apolitical enterprise; and many more things!!