This month we enjoyed talking to Arjun Raj about his interdisciplinary approaches to studying biological systems

• Arjun shares how he almost became a truck driver and experimented with a career in an (unnamed) rock band
• He tells us about his journey from mathematics to quantitative biology and he shares thoughts about comparing biology with physics and what they can learn from each other
• He says we all struggle with how to teach creativity and how to evaluate the most promising ideas.
• Arjun discusses how to improve mentoring and practical auto-mentoring. He gives specific examples about learning how to peer-review papers.
• He recommends a narrative-based approach to science communication so that you can leave the audience with a feeling of wonder
• He is inspired by Star Wars storytelling as a science communicator
• He says it's important to go through a period of really paying attention to the small details
• Arjun argues that scientists have become overburdened and that increasing scope creep creates a lot of pressure

He mentioned these labs, scientists and institutions
University of Pennsylvania https://www.upenn.edu/
UC Berkeley https://www.berkeley.edu/
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University https://cims.nyu.edu/dynamic/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://www.mit.edu/
Fred Kramer https://phri.njms.rutgers.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty/fred-russell-kramer/
Sunjay Tyagi https://phri.njms.rutgers.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty/sanjay-tyagi/

To find out more about Arjun visit these links  
Raj Lab https://rajlab.seas.upenn.edu/
on Twitter/X https://x.com/arjunrajla
Random musings Blog https://rajlaboratory.blogspot.com/
Tools for Science resource https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jBGk-u5auVCvI5EMaQnptMWbxHHl3ncIhKgIgEzjylw/edit

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More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/