Mayank Chugh, PhD, is part of a new generation of activist-scientists who are not afraid to use data to change policy. Society even, if Chugh has his way.

A systems biologist trained in data analytics, Chugh has pivoted sharply from basic research in the laboratory to studying the “science of science” as it pertains to social justice, equity, and inclusion. Blame Covid on the shift: The pandemic hit less than two months into Chugh’s new job, as he made his way to a new country as a postdoc in the Harvard Medical School (HMS) laboratory of Sean Megason, PhD. For Chugh, the global upheaval and personal isolation triggered a period of introspection that forced him to rethink everything.

In October, Chugh was awarded the 2024 Equity, Social Justice, and Advocacy Award from HMS. He is a visiting assistant professor at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., where he leads the ReForm Lab.

You’ve just started a new position that shifts your career from basic research in systems biology to something quite different. What will you be doing?

My goals are to establish research and teaching programs that address questions of social relevance in biomedicine. I will be approaching problems such as how we do research in STEM fields, how we produce innovation, and how that impacts society in different social dimensions. It’s kind of the science of science, because how we do science – how we design, conduct, and evaluate it, also needs empirical assessment.

I’m particularly interested in investigating the various social dimensions of inequality. Most of these questions are asked at the undergraduate level, but nothing really penetrates to the upper echelons of academia. I think it is important to take these issues into consideration in higher-education spaces.

I want to use my skills in data analytics and quantitative biology to approach these questions empirically, to collect data for a specific question, and then try to drive policy and culture change based on that data. The new position is a great jumping-off platform to pursue this. It’s exciting and nerve-racking at the same time.

What made you rethink your planned career in systems biology?

I came to this country about one and a half months before the pandemic. I did not know anybody. I was trying to settle into a new country and make sense of a new lab and a new model organism. And then the world shut down.

Like others, I had serious mental health troubles during that time. But as harsh and depressing as that was, it also enabled me to sit back and think about what I want from life. It was a period of introspection, seeing what was happening in the world and thinking I could be dead tomorrow. Somehow that created space for a reset, to pause and think about how I could shape the ways I do things differently.

I began to ask how I can contribute to society. Ultimately, I chose to finally pursue the path that I have always wanted but which was seen as extracurricular activity by my mentors in the past. Their advice was clear: “This might not make money, so get your degrees, get all your ducks in a row and you can do that later.” It was always later.

“It was very clear that the salaries postdocs are being paid is not enough to survive in the city of Boston for a single person, let alone people who have families or who come from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds.”

As a first-generation college graduate who had to cover my own education fees after my family went broke when I was in high school, I understand this mentality. But the pandemic gave me the space to see that “later” is a fictional or hypothetical scenario, and that I should seize what I want when I can.

So I took on various leadership positions in our department and at HMS, and tried to ask more concretely what I can do with my skills, biomedical expertise, and experiences of living in various countries. How can I build these bridges across disciplines?

One cause you’ve taken up is postdoctoral pay, backed up by your survey of Harvard-affiliated postdocs. What have you learned?

I was interested in how social dimensions of inequality and socioeconomic status impact the workforce, and in particular the workforce of postdocs. We asked postdocs at HMS and affiliated institutions about their pay and living expenses, including childcare if they are parents. We were overwhelmed that about 1,200 responded, which is almost double the response rate of some national surveys.

It was very clear that the salaries postdocs are being paid is not enough to survive in the city of Boston for a single person, let alone people who have families or who come from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds. We’ve used this data to argue that this is not okay.

We are living in an era when institutions are claiming to create space for broader and more diverse participation at higher levels of academia. If they want to retain their postdoc talent pool, they have to value postdocs. One way to do that is to pay them for their work. If the work doesn’t pay enough, people from under-represented and underprivileged backgrounds are the first to go elsewhere, for economic reasons. That is counterproductive to what academic medical centers are trying to achieve.

You’ve also worked to make science accessible to all. How does something like open access factor into the big picture of social equity?

I think you can break it down. Open access is a question of knowledge dissemination, the knowledge that we as scientists produce. And sharing that is important to creating more knowledge, right? They go hand in hand.

“I believe access to education and knowledge should be a human right. Access empowers people. As a scientist, you need access to research to do more research.”

Most major publishing houses have traditionally been based in North America and Europe, so that is where the access or gatekeeping pathways are as well. That creates a big wall for the global south and countries that cannot afford to pay for journal subscriptions. It means researchers in, say, Kenya or Pakistan or Syria or Sri Lanka, India, Brazil, Venezuela, and so on can’t access this research. We are basically excluding most of the population on this planet.

I believe access to education and knowledge should be a human right. Access empowers people. As a scientist, you need access to research to do more research. The scientific enterprise could promote inclusivity at a global level by bridging these boundaries to knowledge creation and knowledge-sharing.

You’ve recently written a commentary in Nature about the idea of “citizenship privilege.” What do you mean?

Growing up in India, I believed that everybody needed a visa to travel internationally. I’ve since realized that’s not true; it depends on where you are from. Over the last 50 or 60 years, policies around visas have shaped global travel, including science-related travel.

In science and academia, we place a high value on mobility. For instance, if a speaker is here at our department from outside, we introduce them referencing all the different places they have studied or researched. A component of mobility is already implied. Intentionally or not, that is being passed on to others in a manner to suggest that this is how to build your career and have a competitive profile for scientific conferences and meetings. But that does not come easy for the global south.

I’ve been working with a sociologist at Northeastern University, Tiffany Joseph, to try to bring awareness within academia to this idea of citizenship as a privilege. Our commentary on this topic is backed up by international mobility data. However, we lack data on visa composition among postdocs, how much time postdocs spend obtaining visas, and how that impacts their research productivity and career progression.

We have now collected this data in our survey of HMS-affiliated institutions and already we see some unexpected surprises. We are working on a peer-reviewed manuscript based on the results. Now, we can take our case to organizations and federal agencies that regulate immigration and visas to advocate for policy changes to address these inequities.

This is just the start. It’s a step in the direction of the kinds of things I’m interested in — to use empirical data to change policies and help make science and society more inclusive.