Dr Lalitha Sundaram

Lalitha Sundaram researches a range of issues to do with the societal impact of emerging biotechnologies.

Academic interests

Lalitha Sundaram’s academic interests include:

• Global catastrophic biological risk
• Governance and society aspects of biotechnology
• Cyberbiosecurity.

Degrees obtained

• BA, Cantab.
• MA, Cantab.
• PhD, Cantab.

Biography

Lalitha Sundaram is a scholar in Existential Risk, where she explores biological risk. Her work looks at the governance of emerging biotechnologies, with a particular focus on regulation and biosafety. Her most recent ongoing project explores the overlap between cybersecurity and biosecurity.

Lalitha grew up in Geneva, Switzerland after which she read Natural Sciences (Genetics) at Cambridge. Her PhD, also in Cambridge, researched the infectious pathogen Toxoplasma gondii. Following this, she became interested in Synthetic Biology’s impact on global health, both with the Cambridge/Edinburgh Arsenic Biosensor Collaboration with a focus on Nepal and Bangladesh and through a fellowship at King's College London.

Other interests

Piano, cooking, reading.