Angela Saini

Angela Saini
File:Angela Saini photo.jpeg
Born	(1980-10-25) 25 October 1980 London, England
Education	Masters degree in Engineering Science
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Notable work	Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World; A Degree of Deception; A Formula for Justice;
Website	angelasaini.co.uk

Angela Saini (born 25 October 1980 in London, England) is an English science journalist and author. Her first book Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World was published on 3 March 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, and by Hachette in the Indian sub-continent in April 2011.

She has been published in Science, Wired, The Guardian and New Scientist and is a frequent presenter on BBC radio, for shows including Material World and More or Less.

Saini is a former reporter for BBC London News, the BBC's regional television news programme covering Greater London. In 2008, she carried out an investigation into bogus universities which was broadcast on the BBC TV's flagship Ten O'Clock News, BBC News 24 and BBC World. The report won a Prix Circom Award for regional television journalism in Europe.

Saini is also a frequent contributor to The New Humanist, a quarterly journal of the Rationalist Association.

Quitting the BBC

Saini cites the changing landscape of journalism as a reason for her departure from the BBC, an organisation she has deep respect for. She notes that having a blog as one "immediate luxury" of being a freelancer. Her blog is titled "Nothing Shocks Me, I'm a Scientist." "Big broadcasters already understand that it's not only lone journalists, but also ordinary citizens who are easily creating mass media. I can't think of anything better than being at the front of that revolution, and I wouldn't be surprised if many others felt the same."

Investigation into bogus universities

Saini's award-winning article A Degree of Deception was based on an investigation in 2007–2008 centred mainly on the Irish International University, "one of the most notorious fake universities operating in the UK." This University is nearly a decade old, and still creating an illusion of credibility, mostly to foreign students who arrive on "campus" only to find the college was just a tiny office block in east London with no library and a handful of students, or in some cases, nothing more than a mailbox.

Other questionable institutions include: University of New Castle, Preston University and University of Leads, whose sole aim is to mislead students and make money.

Courtroom Statistics and Bayes' Theorem

Bayes' theorem is a mathematical equation used in court cases to analyse statistical evidence. Invented by an 18th-century English mathematician, Thomas Bayes, this formula calculates the odds of one event happening given the odds of other related events. In 2010, a judge ruled it can no longer be used. Saini brings this decision to light in her award-winning 2011 article in The Guardian entitled A Formula for Justice asking if it will "result in more miscarriages of justice."

"The impact will be quite shattering," says Professor Norman Fenton, a mathematician at Queen Mary University of London. In the last four years he has been an expert witness in six cases, including the 2007 trial of Levi Bellfield for the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Emelie Delagrange. Fenton and his colleague Amber Marks, a barrister and lecturer in evidence at Queen Mary, University of London, have begun assembling a group of statisticians, forensic scientists and lawyers to research a solution to bad statistics. He believes that the potential for mathematics to improve the justice system is worth these efforts.

Saini quotes Colin Aitken, chairman of the Royal Statistical Society, as saying, "It is usual for forensic experts to use Bayes' theorem even when data is limited, by making assumptions and then drawing up reasonable estimates of what the numbers might be. Being unable to do this could risk miscarriages of justice.”

“Until this complex bit of math can be simply explained," writes Saini, "chances are judges will keep rejecting it."

The Grandmother Hypothesis

In March 2014, Saini published an article in The Observer pertaining to recent scientific debate about infertility and menopause. She begins by defining the concept of "the grandmother hypothesis" as a possible explanation for the evolution of menopause in humans, and why it is seen an advantage for the species. Citing the work of Professor Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Utah, who studied the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, she demonstrates a division of labour in the tribe that not only included older women, but depended on them.

This point of view, however, has recently met with strong opposition who claim that the menopause is little more than a by-product of increased longevity or, more controversially, that infertility arose simply because men "don't fancy older women." Dr Rama Singh, at McMaster University in Canada along with two colleagues, published a controversial paper that claimed that men were the reason for female infertility; men were simply choosing to mate with younger women, eliminating the need for fertility due to lack of sex. His lab, which focuses on male sexual selection, is now working to find out when in history the menopause evolved.

Credentials and awards

• Masters degree in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford and is a former ITN news trainee.
• European Junior Science Writer of the Year in 2009 by the Euroscience Foundation
• Association of British Science Writers Award for best news story in 2012
• Awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2012
• Prix Circom Award for regional television journalism in Europe.

External links

• Geek Nation on Hodder & Stoughton website
• BBC Radio Episode of Four Thought