Desi Academia Podcast
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desiacadpod.bsky.social
Desi Academia Podcast
@desiacadpod.bsky.social
130 followers 320 following 130 posts
Join us, Megh + Vatsal + our researcher friends from all around the world, as we learn more about academic life, research methodology, politics, and survival.

https://open.spotify.com/show/2v6ymNb9uoxMc9gaCKJYLp
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desiacadpod.bsky.social
Desi Academia Podcast @desiacadpod.bsky.social · 2d
It’s here!! ✨

Megh, Aditya, and Vatsal are joined by Indranil @academicmargin, as we discuss Megh’s dissertation research. We talk about cooperation, support systems, linguistics, and the impact of AI on the field.

Check out the episode:
open.spotify.com/episode/19Vq...
Spotify – Web Player
open.spotify.com
desiacadpod.bsky.social
It's season 10 (Yes, we can't believe it either!) and the OG gang gets together after a long time to vent about all things academia.
In this episode of Desi "postdoctoral" podcast, we catch up with Aditya, talk about our lives post PhD and much more!

open.spotify.com/episode/50Uk...
S10E1: Desi Academia Podcast founders meet: Postdoc edition!
open.spotify.com
October 24, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Any researchers or scholars thinking about Return to India should first try and post in support of our peers.
scroll.in Scroll @scroll.in · Sep 2
On Tuesday, Delhi High Court denied bail to Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid and eight others in #DelhiRiots2020 case.
scroll.in/article/1079...
Were students & activists a part of a premeditated plot to destabilise the city?

Here's what a thorough examination of chargesheets revealed.
September 3, 2025 at 4:51 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Have you ever wondered how an Islamic Studies scholar explains their research to an immigration officer?

Watch this space for our latest episode, where we find out more!
August 26, 2025 at 2:25 AM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
I would I would like to share this snippet from my dissertation's acknowledgements section. I cannot stress how IMPOSSIBLE academic success is in the Global South without disobedience.

Fuck academic paywalls forever.
Screenshot: Finally, a huge thank you to the institutions, networks and people who make science accessible. I thank all the scholars who shared their code, data, and research with me in the spirit of open science. I thank all the collectives that battle against the profit-motivated gatekeeping of science and made scientific research a reality for me in the Global South: the moderators, managers, and contributors of SciHUB, LibGen, Internet Archive, and ArXiv. Thank you, Aaron Schwartz. I am profoundly grateful to the tireless defenders and advocates of public-funded higher education in the United States and India, who raise their voices even in the darkest of time. Thank you for fighting the good fight.
August 26, 2025 at 1:22 AM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Happy Friday.

hannahshelley.neocities.org/blog/2025_08...
Google Scholar Is Doomed
Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?
hannahshelley.neocities.org
August 22, 2025 at 8:59 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
There is something so ugly about a country desperate to claim a foreign prime minister or second lady as its own, while using its military might to displace and exile life-long residents.

There is no coming back from purging people's records and casting them out.
scroll.in/article/1085...
In today’s India, some will not be Indians no matter how many documents they possess
With processes like the revision of electoral rolls and the NRC, the state is going further down the path of sorting out who can and cannot belong in New India.
scroll.in
August 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Delighted to share that the Desi Academia Podcast is now the "Desi Postdoc Podcast, PhD"!
💪😎

We balanced this production with two dissertations, research projects, international relocations and a whole lot of paperwork.
1/2
August 7, 2025 at 4:27 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
What does it take to fight against unethical behavior in research publishing?

Tune in to our latest discussion with the founder of India Research Watch, Achan Agarwal , in which we talk about his double career as an scientist and plagiarism sleuth.
July 27, 2025 at 9:48 AM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Coming soon!
July 18, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
jamesheathers.bsky.social
All retracted articles should immediately become open access.
July 12, 2025 at 3:04 AM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
This has to be the funniest first world problem:
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
‘AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like’: audiobook actors grapple with the rise of robot narrators
As demand for audio content grows, companies are looking for faster – and cheaper – ways to make it
www.theguardian.com
July 2, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
minorrevision.com
#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #OpenScience #AcademicResearch #AcademicWriting #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #AcademicChatter 🧪
July 2, 2025 at 1:34 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Indian scholars deserve better.

Making the constantly walk a tightrope between blatant exploitation and lack of opportunities is a reflection on our inability to give them value their contributions.
June 28, 2025 at 8:27 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices...
India’s retraction crisis casts shadow over science research
The three pillars of any academic institution are education, research, and innovation. Education equips students with foundational knowledge, while innovation drives societal progress by turning ideas...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
June 21, 2025 at 7:42 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
What is vibe coding?

wrong answers only.
June 21, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
viveknityananda.bsky.social
In March we put on an insect cabaret show I developed with Cap-A-Pie Theatre about insects and the threats they face. We've now uploaded the songs and everyone can now see how brilliant the actors and song-writer were. Thread of songs below 👇🧪 #Insects #cabaret #theatre #scicomm #songs
A poster for a play: "The Vanishing Act: A new cabaret about Earth's disappearing insects". On the right is a black and white ant in a top hat with one leg extended. Radiating from the finger are children's drawings of insect- bees, butterflies, beetles and so on.
June 16, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
kejames.bsky.social
Reminder: sci-comm and outreach costs money, and it’s being defunded across all STEM fields. It’s not just something scientists “do” (or fail to do, or need to do more).

I mean, most of us do “do” it on our own time too, but that will never be enough.
niais.bsky.social Sarah Tuttle @niais.bsky.social · Jun 13
I see a lot of people talking about how "we just need to explain science more to the public".

The state Space Grant programs (one issued in each state) does incredible deep and wide outreach work - supporting education at every age and stage, nurturing science interest.
tanyaofmars.bsky.social Dr. Tanya Harrison @tanyaofmars.bsky.social · Jun 12
Under the proposed White House budget, the NASA Space Grant program would be eliminated.

I was a NASA Space Grant recipient during my Masters—it funded my research on water on Mars.

I then went on to work in science & mission ops on multiple NASA Mars missions immediately after graduation. (1/2)
June 13, 2025 at 2:59 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
It’s pride month 2025 and DAP is back with a new episode with @chowkhani
Join us in this riveting conversation where Dr. Chowkhani explains what is single studies or "singleism" and her research that attempts to understand boyhood, sexuality and society.

open.spotify.com/episode/3fab...
S9E1: Understanding boyhood, singleism, society and sexuality with Dr. Ketaki Chowkhani
Desi Academia Podcast · Episode
open.spotify.com
June 1, 2025 at 4:00 AM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Small teaser of the things to come!
Interesting conversations, amazing people…stay tuned!!
May 29, 2025 at 9:01 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
📣📣Coming soon on Desi Academia Podcast!!

Very excited for the upcoming episodes of DAP focusing on research around gender and society.
Don’t forget to tune in for some sharp conversations and fresh perspectives!!

🎧🎙️new episode dropping soon! *Watch this space*
May 28, 2025 at 3:03 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Privatisation favours the spineless.

Source: theobserverpost.com/ashoka-unive...
Meanwhile, Ashoka University issued a statement distancing itself from the professor’s remarks. “The comments made by a faculty member on his personal social media pages do not represent the opinion of the university,” the statement said. It added that the university stands firmly with the nation and its armed forces. In response, academics from across India have begun rallying in support of Mahmudabad. A letter initiated by Delhi University’s Professor Apoorvanand and Ashoka University’s Professor Aparna Vaidik has called for the withdrawal of the summons, describing the case as an attack on academic freedom and the right to dissent.
May 21, 2025 at 5:20 PM
desiacadpod.bsky.social
Incredible.
scientificdiscovery.dev Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · May 3
Every part of this story!
Over nearly 18 years, the man, Tim Friede, 57, injected himself with more than 650 carefully calibrated, escalating doses of venom to build his immunity to 16 deadly snake species. He also allowed the snakes — mostly one at a time, but sometimes two, as in the video — to sink their sharp fangs into him about 200 times. This bit of daredevilry (one name for it) may now help to solve a dire global health problem. More than 600 species of venomous snakes roam the earth, biting as many as 2.7 million people, killing about 120,000 people and maiming 400,000 others — numbers thought to be vast underestimates. In Mr. Friede’s blood, scientists say they have identified antibodies that are capable of neutralizing the venom of multiple snake species, a step toward creating a universal antivenom, they reported on Friday in the journal Cell. “I’m really proud that I can do something in life for humanity, to make a difference for people that are 8,000 miles away, that I’m never going to meet, never going to talk to, never going to see, probably,” said Mr.
May 3, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
amitkaushik3.bsky.social
Thanks to Meghavarshini Krishnaswamy and Vatsal Sachan for inviting me to their fantastic #podcast. I thoroughly had a great experience!

In this podcast, I talk about my path into #conservation and #anthropology, and connecting science, art, people, and ongoing projects.
desiacadpod.bsky.social Desi Academia Podcast @desiacadpod.bsky.social · Apr 25
✨✨ New episode alert! 📢🎉
Amit Kaushik (
@amitkaushik3.bsky.social) talk to us about his journey in conservation and anthropology, winning funding from NatGeo, wolves in India, and art for ecology!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...
🐺🏔️🗺️🇮🇳
S8E5: A Career in Conservation: The human-wildlife relationship with Amit Kaushik
Podcast Episode · Desi Academia Podcast · 04/25/2025 · 1h 52m
podcasts.apple.com
April 26, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Desi Academia Podcast
wiair.bsky.social
🎓 The #PhDJourney is often seen as noble and exciting-but it also comes with hidden struggles.
In our latest episode, we talk to Aparna Balagopalan, an AI researcher from 🇮🇳 and PhD student at #MIT.
1/5👇

#PhDLife #AI4Health
April 25, 2025 at 4:24 PM