Hiya Jain

I write about the history of science, public health, metascience, books etc on my blog, Mundane Beauty, and lead editorial for The Revival Fund.

My work includes:

On the side, I run a monthly reading group [sign up for updates here] with Abby ShalekBriski and I’m a non-resident fellow with the Roots of Progress Institute.

Previously, I studied History and Neuroscience at Barnard College, Columbia University. While there, I wrote an honors thesis (Henri Poincaré and the Aesthetics of Mathematics) which demonstrates how scientists used beauty and elegance as proxy for truth. During college, I also worked as a research assistant to Mark Mazower on On Antisemitism, A Word in History (Penguin, Sept 2025), and to Matthew Stanley on a long-form history of science project. Before all of that I took a gap semester with support from Emergent Ventures.

A running list of things I want to write about (soon) can be found in my open Notebook – please reach out if you would like to collaborate with, or commission me on any of them (or if you just want to say hello)

I am very happy to get emails on: hiya [at] mundane [dot] beauty

Or you can message me on twitter / linkedin