Sujata Gupta

Sujata Gupta

Social Sciences Writer

Sujata Gupta is the social sciences writer for Science News. She was a 2017-18 Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Nature, Discover, NPR, Scientific American, and others. Sujata got her start in journalism at a daily newspaper in Central New York, where she covered education and small town politics. She has also worked as a National Park Ranger, completing stints at parks in Hawaii, California and Maine, and taught English in Nagano, Japan.

All Stories by Sujata Gupta

  1. Science & Society

    California’s long-standing affirmative action ban hints at what’s to come

    Alternative race-neutral polices to affirmative action have fallen short in encouraging diversity in California schools, research shows.

  2. Psychology

    Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters

    Boys’ depression often manifests as anger or irritability, but teen mental health surveys tend to ask about hopelessness.

  3. Science & Society

    Anténor Firmin challenged anthropology’s racist roots 150 years ago

    In The Equality of the Human Races, Haitian scholar Anténor Firmin showed that science did not support division among the races.

  4. Science & Society

    Deliberate ignorance is useful in certain circumstances, researchers say

    The former East German secret police, the Stasi, spied on people for years. But when given access to the Stasi files, most people didn’t want to read them, researchers found.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Trauma distorts our sense of time and self. A new therapy might help

    The therapy has helped veterans struggling with mental illness imagine their future selves.

  6. Science & Society

    Lots of people feel burned out. But what is burnout exactly?

    Researchers disagree on how to define burnout, or if the phenomenon is really another name for depression. Helping people cope at work still matters.

  7. Science & Society

    We prioritize family over self, and that has real-world implications

    Two studies show how family bonds improve personal and mental health, suggesting policy makers should shift away from individualistic mindsets.

  8. Science & Society

    Pandemic languishing is a thing. But is it a privilege?

    Positive psychologists contend that people can flourish if they try hard enough. But this pinnacle of well-being might not be so fully in our control.

  9. Science & Society

    Why fuzzy definitions are a problem in the social sciences

    Social sciences research is plagued by murky definitions and measurements. Here’s why that matters.

  10. Psychology

    The pandemic shows us how crises derail young adults’ lives for decades

    Age matters for when we experience calamities, such as pandemics. Young adults are especially vulnerable to getting thrown off their life course.

  11. Psychology

    The pandemic may be stunting young adults’ personality development

    People typically become less neurotic and more agreeable with age. The COVID-19 pandemic may have reversed those trends in adults younger than 30.

  12. Science & Society

    Looking for a job? Lean more on weak ties than strong relationships

    A 50-year-old social science theory gets put to the test in a new study using data on 20 million LinkedIn users.