HLTH Forward Podcast

Rebuilding Trust in Science: Nicholas Dirks, President and CEO @The New York Academy of Sciences

The Covid- 19 Pandemic has shown us our resilience, innovation in vaccines and technology and equally shown us a broken communication and trust. 

“Scientists and their advocates must do more than simply improve how they explain scientific issues to the public. A broader set of stakeholders must be given a voice in debates about the social, cultural, political, and ethical implications of new discoveries."  says Nicholas Dirks, President and CEO - New York Academy of Sciences.

In this episode, I am conversing with Nicholas Dirks, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, and we walk down the historical lanes of art and science to unlock the answers to challenges in healthcare, we acknowledge that science is primarily an experimentation, and the variation in guidance to the public could erode the trust in science. We discuss what it takes to rebuild trust in science. It involves building communication skills for scientists to communicate better to the public simply and transparently, bringing different stakeholders to the table, such as technology, business, and artists, to enhance further and expand one's thought process.

Nicholas Dirks, a world-renowned Historian and Anthropologist shares with us the importance of viewing healthcare beyond oneself and how we could play roles that can further contribute to society to make this world a better place.

About:
Nicholas Dirks is President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Dirks was the 10th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, until mid-2017, where he is Professor of History and Anthropology. An internationally renowned scholar of South Asia, he is a widely respected public intellectual.  At Berkeley he supported initiatives in data science, neuroscience, genomics, and undergraduate education, while fostering collaboration among universities both locally and globally.

Dirks has held numerous fellowships and scholarships and received several scholarly honors, including a MacArthur Foundation residential fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lionel Trilling Award for his book Castes of Mind. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on numerous national and international bodies, as adviser or member of the board. He is also a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

About Host
Smriti Kirubanandan has a strong background in robotics and public health and is a Healthcare Executive, where she focuses on driving significant transformations within the healthcare ecosystem, concentrating on customer experience, intelligent automation, data analytics and insights, and is determined to make healthcare more accessible and affordable through innovation and empathy. She also spearheads brand development, thought leadership, and market research. 

Smriti is a selected Young Global Leader 2023 by the World Economic Forum, a member of the Young Leaders Circle at the Milken Institute, and is the Founder of HLTH Forward Podcast- an award-winning media platform that hosts healthcare leaders, policymakers, and artists to discuss the challenges in the system and what we could do collectively to move healthcare forward. 

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