Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Reporter & Writer

Gayathri is an Indian-Canadian writer and editor.  Her feature and investigative writing has been published in Nature, Discover, the Washington Post, Undark, the New York Times, the BBC, among others.

She co-founded the award-winning Scrolls & Leaves podcast that had a mission to decolonize South Asian history of science and cultures. 

She was a reporter for E&E News in Washington, DC for seven years, where she covered climate change and oil and gas, and investigated stories on hydraulic fracturing, air pollution and climate deniers.

She has reported from India, Liberia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and other places. 

In 2020, she got the British Association of Science Writer’s feature award for this story. In 2019,  she was part of the team that received the 2019 George Polk Award for the environment. In 2014, she received an award from the Society for Professional Journalists and in 2012, from the National Association of Science Writers. She’s received many fellowships. She is a grantee of the National Geographic Society.

She has a master’s from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in biochemistry from McMaster University in Ontario. She did lab research for a year. She’s based in Stuttgart, Germany.

Email: gaya dot nathan07 at gmail

Featured Work

Every step you take: An investigation into fitness apps and data privacy

Huffington Post, Nov. 20, 2019

“a significant number of college grads find themselves trapped on the virtual shop-floors of the data economy, stuck to their laptops and smartphones, performing a series of repetitive tasks in what appears to be the digital iteration of an assembly line. Where workers once assembled in shifts in cavernous factories, their 21st century counterparts find themselves slouched in their bedrooms, on short-term contracts with minimal benefits, providing time-zone-matched services to stressed clients struggling to make time for health, leisure or hobbies.

Death on a gasfield

E&E News, Feb. 21, 2013

“Oil and gas sites are among the most dangerous workplaces in the country, according to federal labor statistics and an ongoing EnergyWire investigation. Multiple pressures weigh on the people who work in this high-risk, high-reward industry, including the need to produce on schedule and keep costs down. The company men and their workers have a “get ‘er done” attitude that sometimes leads to safety compromises that go unnoticed and undocumented.”

Tigers in trouble

Nature, Oct. 30, 2019

“But parse the country’s tiger data, and the story becomes murky. The animals are increasingly becoming isolated in small reserves that prioritize tourism. If the cats leave the parks, the risks are rising that they will encounter humans and infrastructure, with tragic results for both the animals and people. Some scientists question whether tiger numbers in India have truly increased and are attempting to get a more accurate count of populations in specific areas. Other researchers are studying how to get people and the carnivores to coexist.”