In this episode, I converse with Dr. Avanti Shrikumar, a Ram and Vijay Shriram Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Data Science, where she works with Prof. Karen Casciotti in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford, Avanti completed her B.S. in Computer Science and Molecular Biology from MIT in 2013 and took a gap year to work on the healthcare team of Palantir Technologies before beginning her graduate studies in the Computer Science department at Stanford under the aegis of Prof. Anshul Kundaje.

Avanti's current research focuses on developing and applying data science techniques to improve our understanding of oceanic nutrient cycling and during her PhD she helped develop machine learning methods, with a focus on deep learning, model interpretation, and applications to regulatory genomics. We indulge in a terrific conversation on her fantastic journey in science; early familial influences and childhood initiations into science; combating biases and dealing with the ubiquitous imposter syndrome; her brilliant research and the fantastic mentors who inspired her; the globally pressing challenge of climate change and the urgent need to combat it to prevent the doomsday scenario of spraying sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere; and many more things!!

*Disclaimer: This episode was recorded early this year in the month of January but is being released now due to some extraneous reasons!