Gayathri Vaidyanathan
Journalist & editor
I’m Gayathri Vaidyanathan, an editor and writer covering technology, science and the environment.
I’m currently the Africa editor at Rest of World, focused on artificial intelligence. Previously, I led its tech labour coverage, recruiting and mentoring journalists across ten countries. Before that, I was deputy Asia editor at Global Press, helping lead coverage and manage a team of 13 reporters in Mongolia, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
My work spans investigations, reported features and audio storytelling. My reporting has appeared in Nature, The Washington Post, the BBC and Undark, and I spent more than six years covering climate change and energy at E&E News in Washington, D.C.
I contributed to Undark’s George Polk Award-winning air pollution series and won an Association of British Science Writers feature award for my reporting on India’s tiger population estimates.
I also co-founded Scrolls & Leaves, an award-winning podcast telling stories from the margins of South Asian history, science and culture.
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.”