Shankar Vedantam is an American journalist, writer, and science correspondent for NPR. His reporting focuses on human behavior and the social sciences.
Vedantam uses journalism and research to inform the public on social science issues. Currently, social science research is being discussed in a high level. Vedantam's conducts his research in a unique way to ensure the public can articulate his work. Vedantam was a participant in the 2002-2003 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, the 2003-2004 World Health Organization Journalism Fellowship, and the 2005 Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship on Science and Religion. He was a 2009-2010 Nieman Fellow. He worked at The Washington Post from 2001 to 2011, writing its "Department of Human Behavior" column from 2007 to 2009. He then wrote an occasional column called "Hidden Brain" for Slate. Vedantam published The Ghosts of Kashmir in 2005, a collection of short stories discussing the divide between Indians and Pakistani. In 2010, Vedantam published the book entitled The Hidden Brain. The Edward R. Murrow Award winner focuses on how people become influenced by their unconscious biases. The book incorporates his experiences working as a reporter at the Washington Post. The novel showcases a range of real life examples on how their biases affect their mental health, including nine chapters discussing situations that affect unconscious biases. He joined NPR in 2011. Since September 2015, he has hosted the NPR social sciences podcast Hidden Brain, where he "reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, the biases that shape our choices, and the triggers that direct the course of our relationships." The podcast has engaged, per week, more than two million downloads. The podcast aired on 250 radio stations within the United States. He has lectured at Harvard University and Columbia University, served on the advisory board of the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowships in Science & Religion, and been a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
Literary career
Vedantam has written plays, fiction and nonfiction. His comedy Tom, Dick and Harriet was produced by the Brick Playhouse in Philadelphia in 2004, and his collection of short stories, The Ghosts of Kashmir, was published in 2005. His nonfiction book, The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives, was published in 2010.
