This week, the conversation is a candid one about breaking out of the mould shaped by a professional program into an interdisciplinary community. Aadita Chaudhury, doctoral student, tells her story of her journey to realizing that technology can be a tool for liberation, and how she's using the tools and skills she learned in industry to break down prescriptive ways of knowing and critically examine STEM-exceptionalist narratives. Plus, she gives practical advice on how new STEM professionals can begin to change the world for the better.

(Please excuse any audio hiccups in this remotely recorded interview.)

Guest: Aadita Chaudhury (Twitter)

Aadita Chaudhury is a doctoral student in the Science and Technology Studies at York University. Her doctoral dissertation project explores the multifaceted cultural, material and environmental meaning-making, building on her ethnographic research on fire ecology and wildfire management in California. Her research further investigates the practices surrounding both ecosystem and built environment fires around the world to situate how themes of coloniality, valuation and race emerge in the context of fire management.

Aadita is an interdisciplinary scholar, holding a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto and a Master of Environmental Studies at York University. She was awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship as well as Enbridge Graduate Student Award which recognizes scholarships in environmental sustainability.

Currently, Aadita is a Research Assistant to the European Research Council-funded Sonic Street Technologies project at Goldsmiths, University of London, examining the culture, diaspora and knowledges of subaltern and Global South uses of sound technologies. In 2020, she was a virtual resident in the UNIDEE residency program in Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy, exploring visual modes of representation, embodied modes of relating and poetic form in relation to fire/combustion as a phenomenon along with arts practitioners from other disciplines from around the world.

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Relevant Links:

• Aadita's website
• Aadita on LinkedIn
• Aadita's publications
• Santiniketan, West Bengal, India
• Sonic Street Technologies: Culture, Diaspora and Knowledge

Hosted by: Vanessa Hennessey
Theme Music: “Positive and Fun” by Scott Holmes
Produced by: Vanessa Hennessey

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