Book Review: ‘Lab Hopping: A Journey to find India’s women in Science’ by Aashima Dogra and Nandita Jayaraj

Published : Jun 02, 2023 15:51 IST - 10 MINS READ Some weeks before their Bengaluru-based science magazine would close, the writers of Lab Hopping, Ashima Dogra and Nandita Jayaraj, received a lunch invite from their company HR on March 8, 2015. Lab Hopping: A Journey to find India’s women in Science Aashima Dogra and Nandita Jayaraj Penguin/Viking Pages: 302 Price: Rs. Here, you will find the kind of stories that are rarely told about science and scientists—a cancer biologist who lobbied her institution to set up a daycare centre for kids, a profile of a woman scientist at ISRO who helped launch India’s historic Mangalyan mission, a fern researcher whose lab is full of married women because she has no money and men would not work without stipends, a PhD student in conservation ecology speaking about the sexism she encounters from forest service officers on the field. Well-researched The book’s strengths are its solid research: in particular, the data furnished is ample and unambiguously sobering—24 to 30 per cent of PhDs in science in India are awarded to women, the Government of India has found, yet women make up only 18.5 per cent of employed scientists. In 2014-15, the Indian Academy of Sciences published a volume called Lilavati’s Daughters edited by the physicist Rohini Godbole and the interdisciplinary scientist Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, comprising profiles of prominent Indian women scientists.