Dr Ponnari Gottipati (co-founder, SaS) is a Research Management, Science Education and Engagement consultant in Hyderabad. In addition to co-leading SaS, she currently consults for LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, and Sree Padmavathi Venkateswara Foundation, Vijayawada in Research Management. Trained in Molecular Biology, with a PhD from the University of Sheffield, UK, and a Postdoc from the University of Oxford, UK, she was previously at the DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance as Grants Manager.  Celebrating science through engagement and outreach enthuses and inspires her!

@PonnariG

Dr Sarah Hyder Iqbal (co-founder, SaS) is a science engagement consultant specialising in innovative, participatory approaches to public and policy engagement with science and research. Her diverse experience spans biomedical research, public engagement, strategic communication, funding, science policy, and capacity building. Sarah has worked with the funding agency DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance and the science policy think tank Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (FAST India), where she helped set up their science communication and public engagement verticals. She also collaborated with Pivot Collective (South Africa) on a Wellcome Trust-funded learning and design project on knowledge exchange and community engagement in health research and serves as faculty for the Health Communication course by Sangath, India. Sarah holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford and completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at the Scripps Research Institute, USA.

@SarahHyder

Dr Somdatta Karak (co-lead, SaS) is trained as a molecular and cellular Neuroscientist at the University of Göttingen and had been a Teach for India Fellow. In her current role, she designs and handles the communication channels at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad. Through these, she informs and engages with students, educators, industries as well as the general public of the research and other activities at CCMB. She loves working towards building a more informed society.

@SomdattaKarak

Khushi Goel (Project Associate, SaS) holds a Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences from the University of Delhi. In her previous roles, she served as a Science Communication Intern at the Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (FAST-India) and as a Research Associate at the Center for Civil Society (CCS). At CCS, she contributed to a project focused on evaluating and benchmarking best practices for science research management in India.

@KhushiGoel__

Sanjukta Mondal (Project Associate,SaS). She holds a master's degree in industrial chemistry from Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences and works as an independent science communicator and journalist.

Apart from journalistic science stories, she writes popular science articles on various scientific topics and crafts scripts/storyboards for investigative video essays that expose misinformation and debunk pseudoscience. She is also passionate about using social media to reach a wider audience and create digital content that makes science fun and accessible.

@sm_essem