Aatish Bhatia

I create interactive articles that explain complex ideas in simple ways for The Upshot, a section of The New York Times specializing in explanatory and analytical journalism.

What I Cover

I cover topics where math and science intersect with daily life. That includes climate change, extreme weather, artificial intelligence and education.

To explain how A.I. tools like ChatGPT work, I trained small language models on Jane Austen and Shakespeare. I made 3-D graphics and animated maps to show how the Tonga volcano created a once-in-a-century shock wave, how the Carolina coast is one of the most hurricane-prone parts of the country, and how air from the polar vortex bulged into the United States. I created interactive graphics that broke down the president’s climate agenda in detail. My investigation of prenatal testing with my colleague Sarah Kliff was cited by the Food and Drug Administration in their proposed rule to regulate laboratory-developed tests.

My Background

I have a Ph.D. in physics from Rutgers University, where I went from studying particle physics to analyzing genetic data. Afterward, I worked at Princeton University for six years, teaching classes about making art with engineering, and about the math and science underlying music.

Before joining The Times, I cocreated widely viewed YouTube science videos and interactive explainers on topics including the Covid pandemic, patterns in water waves and mathematical tiling patterns.

Journalistic Ethics

I follow the standards detailed in The Times’s Ethical Journalism Handbook. My training as a scientist has also taught me how difficult it is to know things with certainty. I strive to bring the same level of skepticism and scientific rigor to my work at The Upshot. I try to always question whether my findings make intuitive sense, cross-check them against other sources, think through what the data says and what it leaves out, and learn from my mistakes.

• Email: aatish.bhatia@nytimes.com