Krithika Venkataraman

Project focus: The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) Civic Science Fellow will lead a project exploring how we can go beyond knowledge outputs like publications and datasets to drive systems change, in order to recognize, articulate, and reward the community and infrastructure work that is foundational to global scale scientific collaborations.

Krithika Venkataraman is a scientist, storyteller, and community-builder. As a civic science practitioner, her work draws on data, narrative, and intentional design from different disciplines to make visible the full value scientific ecosystems create—from the scientific rigor of discovery to the infrastructural and human work that enables it. Previously, she was the inaugural Civic Science Associate at RockEDU Science Outreach at The Rockefeller University. With support from the Rita Allen Foundation, she designed a platform offering curated scaffolding for laboratories to function more inclusively. Krithika was also a scientific program officer at the Simons Foundation, leading grant making and convening in large-scale neuroscience collaborations and fellowship initiatives for researchers across career stages. She received a B.A. in biochemistry and a minor in neuroscience from Smith College. Her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University combined behavior, genetics, and evolutionary biology to understand how disease-vector mosquitoes adapt their reproductive strategies to climate fluctuations. Krithika was born in India and spent her childhood between Belgium and India, before living in the United States and the United Kingdom. Her experiences shape her curiosity about how communities and cultures share knowledge and build trust to drive innovation. Outside of work, she enjoys pottery, yoga, photography, and audiobooks.