Essay by Sahana Subramanyam
In 2018, as an economics major at Azim Premji University in India, I was interested in studying the persistence of social inequalities but was unsure about what a research career would look like. My professor Arjun Jayadev recommended SFI’s summer research program for undergraduates as an excellent opportunity to explore my wide interests in a supportive environment.
Arjun spoke about SFI as a place that embodied the same openness to new and diverse ideas as my undergraduate institution. In his stories, it became a kind of magical place — where ideas mattered more than titles and where everyone was united by a shared passion for science. He described researchers jotting equations on glass windows, their work merging with the breathtaking view of the high desert landscape. It was a place where curiosity flourished and conversations crossed disciplines effortlessly. Hearing these stories, I was captivated and determined to experience such an extraordinary environment for myself.
I applied to the program — now called Undergraduate Complexity Research (UCR) — and was ecstatic to be accepted. As one of the first participants from India, I was grateful for the program’s full funding, which made my participation possible. From the moment I arrived, I felt fully supported and welcomed into an eclectic and passionate community of scholars.
The UCR program was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The structure was refreshingly open: you could talk to anyone you wanted, but you also chose a research mentor for more focused guidance. My mentor was Mike Price, an SFI postdoctoral fellow who epitomized the interdisciplinary spirit of SFI. Every time I stepped into his office, I’d find him immersed in something completely unexpected — carbon-dating a giant human tooth one day, sketching an inverse S-shaped probability curve from behavioral economics the next. His intellectual curiosity was infectious, and it inspired me to follow my own interests freely, rather than feeling constrained by what I thought were the unsaid boundaries of standard economics — the market and state. At the same time, he emphasized the importance of learning deeply from those who had dedicated their lives to a specific area. This balance of curiosity and rigor became a guiding principle for me.
The collaborative culture at SFI was extraordinary. People from all disciplines were not only willing but eager to answer even my most basic questions. Conversations over tea and lunch often turned into mini-lectures on everything from the origin of life to algorithmic fairness to hypercubes. These seemingly casual exchanges were where the magic happened — they often sparked ideas that would later become the foundation of research projects. For instance, a conversation with Cris Moore about algorithmic fairness left such an impression that it now informs a part of my research as a Ph.D. student at Stanford.
 |
| [L-R] SFI Education Program Manager Carla Shedivy and Sahana Subramanyam. (image: Courtesy of Sahana Subramanyam) |
The most transformative experience that summer was meeting Sam Bowles and Wendy Carlin, authors of CORE, the introductory economics textbook that was used in undergraduate my class. Carla Shevidy, the education program manager — who remains a close friend to this day — knew how excited I was to meet them and drove me to Sam’s presentation at another SFI program. Soon after, Sam and Wendy invited me to collaborate with them on a project tracing a century of economics research. For an undergraduate from India, the chance to work with economists of their caliber was an incredible opportunity. They could have easily partnered with a computer scientist to implement the project, but they chose to work with me, knowing how much I would learn — not just technically, but also conceptually — about the history and trajectory of economics as a discipline.
The project involved using topic modeling, a then-new technique, to analyze patterns in a century’s worth of economics journal articles. I was completely new to this methodology, but the SFI community made learning it feel natural. Mike Price, and visiting SFI external faculty like Simon DeDeo and Suresh Naidu patiently guided me through setting up the code and understanding the statistics behind the tool, while my computer-science major peers generously answered my questions.
Working with Sam and Wendy was instrumental in encouraging me to pursue economics research. They trusted me to explain our research to economists who visited SFI, which was very empowering as a female student in a male-dominated field. Wendy’s confidence, clarity, and kindness left a lasting impression on me. I often find myself channeling her cool composure and incisive arguments in my own academic work. Their mentorship made me feel much more confident in my own abilities, and made me excited to contribute to the field of economics — something that had previously seemed inaccessible.
The project we started at SFI has grown and evolved over the years. Last year, we published a paper — a result of the long-term collaboration — where we demonstrate how economics research has undergone a notable shift, expanding its focus from solely modeling interactions in state and market spheres to include the realm of “civil society.” This finding is particularly meaningful for me because it validated my research interests in the persistence of social inequalities — issues of caste, gender, and race — as not only relevant to economics, but also gaining traction within the field.
Another pivotal moment during the program was being introduced to Stanford professor and SFI External Professor Matt Jackson’s work on networks — an example of a methodological innovation economics has embraced in its shift toward studying civil society. His research offered a way to bridge my interests in social inequalities with formal economic analysis and ultimately played a key role in my decision to pursue a Ph.D. at Stanford. Today, I feel incredibly fortunate to be collaborating with Matt and Sam on a project conceived at SFI, examining the relationship between wealth and social inequality across small-scale societies. Staying true to the interdisciplinary spirit of SFI, our team includes researchers from anthropology, sociology, and statistics.
The UCR program culminates in a final presentation where all the students present their summer research progress to the institute. Looking back, it’s incredible that my peers and I were able to produce near-finished work while simultaneously engaging in many intellectual “side quests” and exploring the stunning hikes and activities that Santa Fe had to offer. I believe this was possible only because of the community effort at SFI, where mentors like Mike took our projects seriously and invested significant time in helping us have tangible research output in three months.
SFI set an exceptionally high standard for collaborative research and intellectual excitement — one I’ve found challenging to replicate elsewhere. The UCR program was pivotal in shaping my academic journey, giving me the tools, confidence, and inspiration to pursue the questions I care about. It’s no wonder I keep returning to SFI, seeking to recapture that unique blend of curiosity, community, and science.
 |
| SFI's 2018 undergraduate researchers. (image: Scott Wagner/SFI) |