Physics major Nik Narain has been obsessed with the brain since elementary school.
“I’d spend most of my time either reading, researching, watching or creating videos about the brain,” he confesses.
As a first-year student at Duke, Narain couldn’t decide which career to pursue: scientist or physician. He resolved the issue by taking the class he wanted in his rearview mirror the fastest: Fundamentals of Physics.
That course changed his entire trajectory, and while Narain acknowledges that subjects like quantum mechanics and thermodynamics aren’t necessarily relevant to neuroscience, he hopes to eventually approach topics like emotion and cognition from a “physicist’s lens.”
He realized his sophomore year that his love for the arts wasn’t something he wanted to keep as a hobby, so he doubled his major to include Visual Media Studies (VMS) with a concentration in Cinematic Arts.
“My experience on the comedy club circuit in Los Angeles and New York City made it clear that I need both art and science in my life.”
Wait. . . the comedy club circuit?
Narain grew up in a family obsessed with comedy. Often teased for being too serious, he would invent random jokes and funny stories in his head, “and LOTS of puns,” he adds. Eventually gaining the confidence to do stand-up, thanks to the Duke University Stand-up Troupe, he’s now an executive member and has performed in comedy clubs and festivals across Los Angeles, New York and Durham.
“Making people laugh is still probably my favorite thing to do, and I’m in the process of writing my first special — so look out for that!”
Narain is also an executive member of the Duke Body Empowerment Project. Having personally experienced and witnessed others struggle with body image issues and disordered eating issues, he believes in creating supportive spaces at Duke for wellness practices and education.
“Eating disorders are connected to harmful nutritional misinformation, and I’m very passionate about changing the narratives around diet, exercise and weight to build more grounded self-care practices.”
Narain is also focused on science communication and storytelling, with a science-focused opinion column in The Chronicle and work with Pitch Story Lab. He makes time to perform science demonstrations at local elementary and middle schools through the Shared Materials and Instrumentation Facility and the Department of Physics. And most recently, he’s started performing in the Triangle area as a science-themed drag artist.
“I love putting on makeup and crazy science clothes and getting to perform for others,” he shares. “I’m really grateful for my friends and drag family for helping me through what has been one of the most transformative experiences of my own body empowerment and well-being.”
We sat down with the busy senior to discuss why he chose his double major, the benefits of his STEAM path and post-grad plans.
How did your clear obsession with neuroscience translate to double majors in Physics and Visual Media Studies?
The beautiful thing about neuroscience is that there isn’t one absolute way to study the brain. There are physicists who view the brain as a computational process and biologists who see the brain as a series of pathways and molecules. Chemists might consider the brain as a series of reactions while psychologists see it as a hodgepodge of desires and behaviors.
Obviously, this is an oversimplification of disciplines, but I think it underscores just how complex the brain is, and I want to think about neuroscience from its most quantitative to its most qualitative senses. That’s what drew me to Physics and Visual Media Studies — and I believe it’s influenced how I’ll study neuroscience in the future.
How does your visual media studies contribute to your work in STEM and vice versa?
My love for art is what fuels my passion for science. I’ve had the fortune of working in the Field Lab, formerly in Duke Neurobiology, and the Schiller Lab at the Center for Computational Psychiatry in Mount Sinai. In the former, the creative intuition learned in my VMS coursework helped me hone my skills in confocal microscopy, and my interest in visual media is what brought me to a biophysics lab that studies visual processing. In the latter, my screenwriting and performance courses gave me an understanding of the complexity of human emotion, which I sought to study quantitatively (i.e. through EEG) in the lab.
My VMS courses teach me how to cope with failure and respond to feedback and have strengthened my presentation and communication skills. My STEM studies give me the diligence, attention to detail, collaboration and organization skills to undertake artistic projects — but my love for science is also what drives my artistic endeavors.
Many of my projects over the last three years have been rooted in science communication and storytelling, including a photo-documentary about the Duke Lemur Center; a year-long development of a television show about neuroscientists; a series of science-inspired stand-up sets which I performed in Los Angeles and New York; and a year-long development of a screenplay about young physicists, which has been second-rounded for the Sundance Feature Film Program.
Immersion in arts networks through Duke Arts and DEMAN have been instrumental in learning how to turn my passion for art into a career — something I never thought would be possible. And the et-al lab, an interdisciplinary art-science lab started in 2022 through Bass Connections, allowed me to meet students with similar interests. Some of my best Duke memories are in the hours drafting assignments for my screenwriting classes and reading my classmates’ work.
After graduating in May, what are your career goals?
I’d like to take a gap year to gain more research and communications experience. I want to earn a Ph.D. in neuroscience, particularly in the quantitative study of phenomena like laughter, which has been largely influenced by my endeavors in VMS.
Eventually, I want a career in some form of science communication. That could mean becoming a professor, working as a communication specialist for a major science organization or being a freelance science writer or journalist.
I firmly believe science is a community practice that’s done by people for people, and I really want to work in that gray area between science and the public.
Interested in learning more about STEAM students at Duke? Read their stories.
