It's season 10 (Yes, we can't believe it either!) and the OG gang (Megh, Aditya, and Vatsal) gets together after a very long time to vent about all things academia.
In this episode of Desi "postdoctoral" podcast, we catch up with Aditya and discuss how academia has been treating him over the past year or so. We talk about what's going on in our lives, things plaguing academia, and much more!
Join us for this fun conversation!
Have you ever wondered what it's like to explain your research to an immigration and customs officer? Today, Manan and Sumaira join us to discuss their work on trans-continental poetry and periodicals respectively, what it means to study the history of Islamic communities and literary traditions in Western Academia, the different aims and focii of sociology, anthropology, literature, religious studies and Islamic studies, and what it means to impart all this knowledge and passion in college classrooms.
Recommendations
Sumaira
Idea of the Muslim World
Ottoman History Podcast
When only God can see: the Muslim Faith of Political Prisoners Walaa Quisay & Asim Qureshi
The Writings of Sharjeel Imam, Gyanendra Pandey, Papihah Ghosh
Adul Manān Bhat
Genealogies of Religion Talal Asad
The Venture of Islam, Marshall Hodson
Politics of Piety,Saba Mahmood
What is Islam? Importance of being Islamic, Shahab Ahmed
The work of Iqbal
Megh
Becoming Young Men in a New India, Shannon Philip
After I Was Raped: The Untold Lives of Five Survivors Urmi Bhattacheryya
Vatsal
Ozarc, Netflix
We have a thought-provoking discussion on how to fight for research ethics with Dr. Achal Agarwal. We discuss different kinds of unethical behaviour in academic publishing, how retractions happen, and the institutional reform needed to uphold academic standards.
Learn more about the Indian Research Watch https://irw.co.in
Recommendations
Achal
Freakonomics
Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy
Course: Calling Bullshit
Vatsal
Alzhimers’ paper retraction https://www.science.org/content/article/researchers-plan-retract-landmark-alzheimers-paper-containing-doctored-images
Alzhimers’ paper data manupulation https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/cassava-alzheimers-trials-misconduct-scrutiny-matthew-schrag/728955/
Megh
The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics, Tim Harford
Movie: Krippendorf’s Tribe
Movie: Serious Men
Join us in this episode of DAP as we talk about the research of Professor Deepak Modi. Prof. Modi is an independent researcher at the ICMR National Institute for Research in Reproductive and Child Health.
To conclude this pride month, he gives us a masterclass on the biology and genetics of human reproduction and fertility. We talk about his cutting edge research that involves 'organs on a chip' to evaluate safety of drugs during pregnancy, molecular pathways he discovered that play an important role in fertility, doing 'wet-lab' research in India and much more!
Recommendations
Deepak
Uterex, Biological basis of sexuality
Emperor of all maladies, Siddhart Mukherjee
The gene machine, Venky Ramakrishnan
‘Science is about doing what everyone has done, but seeing what no one has seen’
Harsha
The last lecture, Randy Post
Vatsal
War, Bob Woodward
Megh
Behind the graduate mental health crisis in science https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-024-02457-z
what OnlyFans' billions reveal about the market value of male desire: https://maalvika.substack.com/p/what-onlyfans-billions-reveal-about
Touch grass podcast
Boring Bedtime stories
In this episode of DAP, Megh, Harsha and Vatsal are joined by Dr. Shannon Philip. Dr. Philip is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the relationship between masculinities, femininities and sexualities in cities of the Global South.
In this riveting conversation, Dr. Philip takes us through his academic journey and while doing so, gives us a masterclass on his intersectional research. We talk about masculinity in global south and how to study this subject, ethnography, patriarchy, feminism and much more...Listen in!
Dr. Philip's book title: Becoming Young Men in a New India: Masculinities, Gender Relations and Violence in the Postcolony
Recommendations
Vatsal
Conclave
Harsha
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Sense of Style
Shannon
Living a feminist life, Nivedita Menon
Badhai Do
The great indian kitchen
Thappad
Megh
Delhi a Novel, kushwant Singh
Age of Vice,
How to talk to your cat about gun violence
Netflix relationship advice, Ananya Pandey
Its pride month 2025 and DAP is back with a new episode. In this episode we are joined by Dr. Ketaki Chaukhani. Dr. Chowkhani is an Assistant Professor at Manipal Centre for Humanities where she teaches India’s first ever course on Singles Studies. Join us in this riveting conversation where she explains what is single studies or "singleism" and her research that attempts to understand boyhood, sexuality and society.
Recommendations
Dr. Chaukhani's selected works:
1. https://www.theswaddle.com/marriage-is-letting-us-down-should-there-be-a-right-not-to-marry
2. Her book: The Limits of Sexuality EducationLove, Sex, and Adolescent Masculinities in Urban India
Dr. Ketaki Chaukhani:
Bella de Paulo
Vatsal
Flop show
Megh
Pushpa 2
Rebecca Watson, violence
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-speak-a-single-language
In this episode, we are joined by Amit Kaushik, A PhD candidate in the Integrative Conservation and Anthropology, University of Georgia. We talk about his pre-doctoral experiences with wetland conservation in Delhi, GIS work in Ladakh, and human-tiger interactions in Madhya Pradesh. Amit tells us how he found himself in an interdisciplinary program, living his dream to work with wolves with a funding partnership with National Geographic. We discuss his school and college transition from commence to anthropology and conservation, and how art, theatre, people, and administrators contribute to his research work .
Recommendations:
Radhika Govindarajan, Animal Intimacies
"Jatikaran: Caste, Rats, and the control of space at the Karni Mata Mandir" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/25148486221094132
Raghu Chandawat, The rise and fall of the emeraldsforest
"Protecting India’s tigers and wolves through art, collaboration and conservation | Franklin College of Arts and Sciences" https://www.franklin.uga.edu/news/stories/2024/protecting-indias-tigers-and-wolves-through-art-collaboration-and-conservation
In this special episode, the hosts of Small India Radio (SIR) Podcast Group: Raj, Nishant, Megh, Vatsal, Richa, and MV; talk about their professional experiences in education and workplaces. We talk about how we got here: our degree choices and motivations, experiences growing up in different parts of India, exposure, and moving away from home.
We discuss the impact of Liberalisation and 2014, creating reliable knowledge sources and reading, visiting India, the thoughts of moving back, and the impact of education systems and degrees on our lives.
Check out our sister podcasts!
In this episode of DAP, Hassaan joins Megh and Vatsal. Hassaan is a Ph.D. student at the University at Albany, studying Theoretical Physics.
Specifically, he is working on problems in String Theory and Quantum Field Theory. Hassaan also has an amazing YouTube channel called "Phymaths," where he makes videos about all things related to theoretical physics and mathematics. In this episode, Hassaan takes us through his academic journey, what it takes to study theoretical physics, and the fascinating fundamentals of physics that make up his thesis work.
Hassaan's YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3nAENP4F5GKrGk9BLNFLvw
Recommendations:
Hassaan
Halliday Resnick, Crane
University Physics
Brief History of Time
Derak belt trick
KKLT
Dine Seiberg problem
Stephen Wineberg
What we owe to the future
What is Real, Adam Becker
Theory and Reality
Twilight of Democracy
A Scout Mindset
Puzzles to Unravel the Universe
A very Short introduction series: game theory, religion
Punjab ka Batwara
Proofs
Megh
4 Lions
Race, Science, and the Continuing Education of Razib Khan https://undark.org/2017/02/28/race-science-razib-khan-racism/
Yo Yo Honey Singh, Famous
Vatsal
Vlog brothers news letters: We are Here
The Man Who Took LSD and Changed The World
In this special episode, friends of the podcast Ajay and Harsha join Megh to discuss the MIT Tech review, 2024. We discuss major innovations in GenAI, biotech, astronomy, and sustainable technology.
We also consider the impact of the defunding of scientific bodies in the US and the deregulation of BigTech, and whether the innovations of 2024 will have a chance to scale.
Recommendations and References:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web: https://www.theverge.com/24158374/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-ai-search-gemini-future-of-the-internet-web-openai-decoder-interview
MIT Technology Review- 10 Breakthrough Technologies: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/03/1109178/10-breakthrough-technologies-2025/
Hugging Face Pleias 1.0 models: https://huggingface.co/blog/Pclanglais/common-models
AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/28/ai-empathy-humans
Can LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas? A Large-Scale Human Study with 100+ NLP Researchers: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.04109
All That Glitters is Not Novel: Plagiarism in AI Generated Research: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.16487
Patal Lok S2
In this episode of DAP, Megh, Vatsal, and a friend of the pod, Dr. Harish Prakash, are joined by Dr. Vivek Nityananda.
Dr. Nityananda is an outstanding behavioral ecologist and a senior lecturer at Newcastle University. His multidisciplinary research aims to understand animal behavior by combining psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and ecology.
Join us as Dr. Nityananda discusses his academic journey, motivations, and research on bees, praying mantis, crickets, and other insects. Moreover, he takes us through his fascinating current research that dissects the evolutionary persistence of “overconfidence,” which is also the subject of his new book titled “Beyond Doubt.”
Recommendations:
Vivek
The Empire Podcast, William Darlymple and Anita Anand
The Last of Us
Harish
Daryl Dickson
Vatsal
Aeons: Surviving Deep Time
Vettaiyan
Megh
Sabrina
Scent of a Woman
In this episode of DAP, we are joined by Professor Mamta Saxena , associate professor at the State University of New York (Oswego). We learn about the field of Human Development and Sibling Studies, and it's relationship with other fields in social sciences. Professor Saxena tells us about her PhD journey, and ongoing research projects.
Recommendations
Megh All that we imagine as light Vettayan Vatsal Severance
This episode, we are joined by Professor Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal (@ranjodhd), from the Digital Humanities Lab, University of Basel. We learn about his transition from engineering to literature, and how his foundation in STEM education contributes to his work in science and technology studies.
We discuss his work on how science is shaped by narratives and capital, and how technical experts and scientists invent many means to express what they observe and find. Our conversation leads to a discussion of the technical aspects of science communication, building video games for research, and the impact of social media on how science is transmitted and popularised.
Recommendations
In this episode, we are joined by recent PhD graduate Dr. Ishaan Bhat (@Doctor_Woah) who shares his experience dissertating in European academia. Ishaan walks us through his specialisation in image recognition and ML/DL algorithms, his interdisciplinary collaboration with medical doctors, and his doctoral research on uncertainty estimation and improving reliability in predictions made by image recognition algorithms. We also chat about his dissertation defence experience.
We cover the unique challenges and joys of applied research, the complications of working with protected data, and the importance of open science, reproducibility, and code+paper style publications.
Recommendations
Aman tells us about how he combined his passion for sport with his lived experience in India, and professional experience as a sports journalist. We discuss how he moved from the fast-paced life of journalistic publication, to slow and measured academic knowledge creation. We also talk about the nuances of researching and teaching about sports journalism and disability, and how to cover a para sportsperson on their term.
Aman also shares with us the amazing experience of his field work: covering and publishing on the Paris para-olympics.
Aman
Pitching Around Fidel: A Journey Into the Heart of Cuban Sports
On National Sports Day today, Aman Misra recommends a few sports books that can inspire children
Vatsal
Megh
Linguini: A benchmark for language-agnostic linguistic reasoning
The promise of Ambedkar University Delhi is in tatters. Professors are quitting & Suing
Movie: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
TV Series Rings of Power
Movie: The Sound of Metal
In this episode of DAP, Megh and Vatsal are joined by Dr. Harish Prakash.
Dr. Prakash is an assistant professor at GITAM University, and his research interests include ecology and animal behavior. Join us in this fun conversation, where we take a deep dive into his academic journey and his motivations. We tackle questions like why the study of ecology is essential, his research involving studying bats in the wild ecosystems of India, and much more.
Recommendations
Harish
Resident Alien
Letter to an ecologist Hugh Wilson
An environmental history of India, Micheal H fisher https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/an-environmental-history-of-india/20102711CAD02F7D3CC090D2E283E006
Malayalam movies- Avesham, Brahmoyugam, Manjumel Boys, Premalu
Megh
Dr. Fatima: the Sokal Affair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESEFUaEA7kk
Importance of stupidity in science: https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/121/11/1771/30038/The-importance-of-stupidity-in-scientific-research
Book: Magnifera Indica:a biography of the mango
Vatsal
Tartrazine makes skin see through:
https://www.sciencealert.com/incredible-experiment-reveals-a-way-to-make-skin-transparent
In this episode, we discuss the resurgence of He Jiankui on the Twitter trends, the research that made CRISPR a Nobel-worthy discovery, and the various reasons why scientists don't go around gene-editing human embryos to create super species.
Readings:
Join us in this episode of Desi Academia Podcast where we discuss the ins and out of an academic publication. Megh and Vatsal are joined by the friend of the pod Dr. Rituparna Patgiri where they talk about all the basics of an academic publication.
We tackle questions like what is an academic publication, where do we publish, who is an author, what is peer review and more!
Recommendations
Megh
“What’s app got to do with it? Premium love in times of emotional capitalism”
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2024/08/12/whats-app-got-to-do-with-it-premium-love-in-times-of-emotional-capitalism/
Grey Zone: How to swear like a linguist
https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28035108?seq=165
“Exploring dialogic interactions in grandparent-grandchild conversations over video chat in the United States” https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZSQM4M84CUIXZZ7IW4FN/full?target=10.1080/17482798.2024.2384977
Movie: Close to You
Rituparna
Doing Sociology- Rituparna’s article on publishing in sociology
Research assistant wanted: The outsourcing of intellectual labour reveals academia’s colonial roots https://scroll.in/article/1061526/research-assistant-wanted-the-outsourcing-of-intellectual-labour-reveals-academias-colonial-roots
LSE How publishing has changed over time
Nature- removing journal names from CVs https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02596-y
Vatsal
Eric, Netflix
City of Djins
In this conversation, Megh and Kaushtubh talk to content creator Balram Vishwakarma about his qualitative research work documenting the lived realities of Mumbai's workers. He shares the story of why he co-founded Scroll Back Studios, and how he approaches sharing human interest stories with the realities of content monetisation.
Recommendations:
In this episode Palomi, shares her journey in psychology. She discusses her experiences with fieldwork and in clinical settings in Karnataka, Andhra, Florida, and the East Coast.
We talk about how researchers of the human mind manage human subject data, building a portfolio and online presence for pursuing research opportunities, and the impact of social media, science communication, and AI tools on the academic community.
Recommendations: