Narrating History

Aparna Vaidik

Aparna Vaidik is Professor of History at Ashoka University. She has previously taught at Georgetown University, Washington DC and University of Delhi. Educated at St. Stephen’s College, Cambridge University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, she is author of 4 books: Revolutionaries on Trial, Waiting for Swaraj, My Son's Inheritance and Imperial Andamans. She is also a recipient of research grants from the British Academy, Andrew Mellon Foundation, Indian Council for Historical Research, and Charles Wallace India Trust.

Neeraja Sankaran

Professor Neeraja Sankaran is a science historian, writer, and editor who has worked and taught at universities worldwide, including the United States of America, Egypt, South Korea, and India. She is the author of two historical monographs: A Tale of Two Viruses Parallels in the Research Trajectories of Tumor and Bacterial Viruses (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021) and Leeuwenhoek’s Legatees and Beijerinck’s Beneficiaries: A History of Medical Virology in The Netherlands (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), a co-authored history of medical virology in the Netherlands. As a science historian, Professor Sankaran has published two scientific reference books: Microbes and People: An A-Z of Microorganisms in Our Lives and The Human Genome Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), with co-author Tara Acharya. She is the editor and producer of The DNA Papers, a podcast featuring moderated conversations among historians, scientists, communicators, and educators on key episodes in the history of discovering and understanding the DNA molecule (https://www.chstm.org/video/144). She has served as an editor of various journals, including of special issues on topics such as the history of pandemic diseases (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/isis/2023/114/S1) and of bacteriophages https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rsnr/2020/74/4).

Professor Sankaran first studied Microbiology –  BSc (Hons), Panjab University, 1986 and MSc, University of Alberta, 1990 – before trading her lab coat for a laptop by obtaining a Graduate Certificate in Science Writing from the University of California Santa Cruz in 1993. After working as a writer for some years, she returned to graduate school, this time for a PhD in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University, which she completed in 2006. Her most recent position before joining Ahmedabad University was as a visiting scholar at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, where she taught writing classes and guided many students towards their first publications in the form of book reviews in established journals.