Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford and author, Sunetra Gupta is both interested in the infectious agents that cause diseases, including malaria, HIV, influenza, and bacterial meningitis.
Sunetra Gupta has recently been a vocal opponent of the UK government’s COVID-19 pandemic lockdown strategy. According to her, other approaches to prevent fatalities among vulnerable groups are still available. She frequently appears in the media and has been quoted in several publications.
About Sunetra Gupta
In addition to translating the poems of the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, Sunetra is a novelist who has published five works of fiction. Her books have won the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Southern Arts Literature Prize, been nominated for the Crossword Award’s shortlist, and placed on long lists for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Orange Prize.
Gupta, who initially majored in physics, developed an interest in applying mathematics to biology and the development of human infections, especially why some, like the flu, became so diversified. She eventually entered the field of theoretical epidemiology under the guidance of the eminent mathematician, theoretical ecologist, and scientific consultant Lord Robert May.
Biography of Sunetra Gupta
Sunetra Gupta, born in Calcutta in 1965, spent her early years travelling between Zambia, England, and Ethiopia. In 1987, Sunetra graduated from Princeton University, and in 1992, she earned her PhD from Imperial College in London. The following year, she began working at Merton as a Junior Research Fellow in Zoology.
Her father, who had exposed her to the poetry of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, urged her to start writing when she returned to Calcutta as a teenager.
She is the author of five books: Memories of Rain (1992), The Glassblower’s Breath (1993), about a day in the lives of a butcher, a baker, and a candle maker and the women they all love, set in Calcutta, New York, and London; Moonlight into Marzipan (1995), which tells the tale of a remarkable discovery made in a dilapidated garage laboratory in Calcutta; and A Sin of Color (1999).
The work of Sunetra Gupta is genuinely stimulating, unusual, and challenging. She deserves the kind of thoughtful response we save for the very finest writers because she writes prose that can evoke the most delicate creative resonance.
Dhruba Gupta, her father (1934–2004), had a crucial role in her life. He had a significant impact on many facets of her thoughts. He was an exceptional man with boundless enthusiasm for “creative criticism.” In addition to teaching African history at Calcutta University, he also wrote and gave lectures on film.
He introduced her to many artistic mediums and taught her how to evaluate them. He helped her develop the ability to transition between the fields of art and science. He didn’t think it was interesting that she was a scientist, but he made it appear natural and straightforward for her to be both a scientist and a writer.
Professor Sunetra Gupta
Professor Sunetra Gupta works for the University of Oxford as a faculty member in the academic fields of biology and allied sciences, mathematics, and statistics. The evolutionary ecology of infectious disease systems is her area of expertise.
The evolution of pathogen variety, particularly about the infectious organisms that cause malaria, influenza, and bacterial meningitis, is her primary area of scientific interest. Professor Sunetra Gupta is also fascinated by the development of host diversity under selection against infectious diseases, focusing on haemoglobin abnormalities that protect against malaria and the MHC.
Sunetra Gupta Oxford
Sunetra Gupta acknowledges feeling somewhat overwhelmed about beginning her life in Oxford, which she described as such a remarkable location. Being nurtured in such an incredibly encouraging intellectual environment was a dream come true for her. At the moment, Sunetra Gupta, her husband, and their two daughters reside in Oxford.
Sunetra Gupta Scientist
As a scientist, Sunetra Gupta discussed how the field has various divisions. Some of them, she noted, employ relatively simple models to investigate the variety of outcomes that the system is capable of producing as well as the sensitivity of the result to various characteristics, including essential ones like the likelihood of passing away from an infection.
She was taught that particular modelling technique by Bob May, and she views it as a really effective tool. The creation of universal flu vaccination is currently being credited to the use of that kind of really basic reductionist paradigm.
Distinctions and Awards
Sunetra Gupta has received honours such as an ERC Advanced Research Fellowship, a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, a Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, both in 2010, a Scientific Medal from the Zoological Society of London in 2008, and a Senior Fellowship in Biodiversity from the Wellcome Trust in 1995.
Frequently Asked Questions
In 1987, Sunetra graduated from Princeton University, and in 1992, she earned her PhD from Imperial College in London. The next year, that is, 1993, she began working at Merton as a Junior Research Fellow in Zoology.
Sunetra Gupta is an Indian immigrant living in England. She was born in India’s Calcutta. Both her mother and father, Dhruba Gupta, are also Indian.
She was born in 1965 in Kolkata, India, which is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal (formerly Calcutta). Situated on the Hooghly River’s eastern bank.
