In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the journey of Somdatta Karak who works as a science communicator and public outreach officer. Connecting with students and helping them grow professionally is her all time favorite job. In this candid chat she takes us through her professional journey and talks about her life as an educator and science communicator.
What inspired your transition from a Neuroscientist to a Science Communication and Public outreach officer? How have you managed to make the most of this transition, while overcoming the challenges that you faced?
My journey from neurosciences to science communication happened through first transitioning into the education sector.
As a neuroscientist, a lot of my work has been on understanding how fruitflies use their senses to collect information from the world around and remember them. I often think these have steered me into thinking how we humans collect and make sense of their information. And education sector felt like the most suitable playground for me to foray into these questions.
In addition, this sector also allows me to build content and platforms that are informed by our modern-day understanding of neurosciences. So, there are enough commonalities in the questions we ask in both the sectors- research as well as education.
What differs are the cultures in each of these sectors. Research can allow for a lot of solitary thinking. Your work is very objective. Education on the other hand is a much more people-oriented work. You cannot think of students who you are working with as mere subjects of your questions. They are humans, first who are leading real lives unlike the controlled conditions of subjects in a laboratory. I think it was very difficult for me to transition into the mode of working with and for humans, where I am not an experimenter anymore, but rather a part of their community. But the time spent with students, led me towards a deeper understanding of their lives and also helped me become a part of their lives. That led to a change in my mindset.
From there, transitioning into science communication was rather easy. As an educator, I had identified the many gaps between those who create new knowledge and develop new technologies, and the young people who are the supposed beneficiaries of these. My current work largely focuses on bridging these gaps, via different platforms.
What do you think makes science communication an interesting career option?
I like that as a science communicator, one can identify which topics they want to work on, which communities they would like to work with, what medium they want to employ. I like being in a space that offers fluidity for many people with diverse backgrounds, expertise and interests to come together and build tangible products and spaces. Science communication is a field in which people can build careers in many different ways, depending upon the specific roles they want to take up, the demography they want to reach out to and so on.
What according to you, is the role of illustrations and artwork in science communication?
I think tt helps for any form of communication/learning to be multi-sensorial. In my work revolving around the young people, I have often collaborated with visual artists to make the content more visual-heavy and low on text. I have done that primarily because India’s literacy levels and reading abilities are very poor. So, while I like the words in my content to convey only the most important objective, the context-setting is done by the illustrations and art. The visuals make the content more inviting, and less intimidating. They allow for adding layers of information that I might not want to put out in words (which might make the content word-heavy and complex) but those looking closely at the visuals will find them anyway. Together, they make the content more wholesome.
What are the possible entrepreneurial opportunities in science that students can explore, apart from research and industry?
Training in science teaches you the art of asking the right questions, finding answers to those questions and also takes you to the depth of understanding the world, while familiarizing you with some of the most cutting-edge technologies.
This is unique because every science student should, in theory, be able to ask a question or identify an existing problem and think of addressing it in their own unique ways. There are many pressing problems in the equality of access towards knowledge, education, healthcare, and everything else that is needed for a better life and upward mobility. And each of them present opportunities for young students that can be explored and worked on further.
Coming back to the question, I think it is entrepreneurial if you can identify your own unique question that you wish to work on. Then you can work on it through being a researcher, or contributing towards it through an industry (which is basically a team of people working in the sector) – started by you or by someone else, or by being a policymaker, or an artist who brings forth matters that we otherwise don’t notice – the list can go on, and they are all equally important, useful as well as doable.
But I must also mention the feasibility of any of these career paths that you identify for yourself. Pick something that interests you, but also something that you have a formal training in. Training can come from your educational background, the community that you have grown up in, or fellowships and work experience. It is important to build the right network of people, to find the right opportunities and also money to pursue the work (of your interest).
What strategies could students employ to ‘rewire and make the brain more adaptable and flexible‘ in a competitive world and within the current educational system?
Here are a few things that students can keep in mind and try to implement-
- Pick an area of study that interests you. You might be fascinated by the technologies that the field is building or the depth of our understanding of the world around us that it is enabling. Get trained in it.
- During your training, find a question that is unanswered/unaddressed.
- Do not be overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. Figure out how you can bridge at least one part of the problem tangibly. What exactly will you do differently that will address (even a part of) the problem?
- Network with people who are working towards the same direction. If possible, intern with them while you are studying or after it. It will give you a more real-world view of the problems.
