Karthik Reddy Mahakala

Research Assistant, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
  • People
  • United States of America

About Karthik Reddy Mahakala

Hey everyone! My name is Karthik Mahakala, and I am a rising Sophomore studying Environmental Biology at Columbia College. Specifically, I am extremely passionate about environmental health sciences, which encompasses how physical, chemical, and biological factors in the natural and built environments impact public health. 

This summer, I will be evaluating the reliability of consumer-facing packaging signals for skin-lightening products across Northern Manhattan as a research assistant in the Llanos Lab.

I am a/an:

Undergraduate Leadership & Research Scholar

University

Columbia University

Laidlaw Cohort Year

2026

Research Topic

Population Health

Area of Expertise

Environment Health

I am from:

United States of America

I speak:

English

My hobbies/interests are:

Crafts & DIY Hiking/walking Nature & environment

Influencer Of

Topics

Channels contributed to:

Medicine & Health Research

Rooms participated in:

Columbia University

Recent Comments

Hi Tomás,

That's so amazing that the librarians were able to better help you contextualize bioethics within social infrastructure! My area of expertise is definitely more in STEM-related fields; however, I have had to spend a lot of time reading on legislation due to the nature of my project. I am excited to see how the librarians might be able to help me!

Hi Joy! I completely relate to not being able to imagine your research journey when you don't have a central question defined yet. I'm a very structured person, and so it's also been hard for me to work on my project knowing that we have hard deadlines. Something I've been trying to work on is being okay with not having a fixed question and instead being open to constantly changing and shaping my research methodology as I do more research and come up with new ideas.  In the same way that my essay topic for E3 at UW was constantly changing, I am attempting to apply that same philosophy to my current project and be more open to the idea of a constantly evolving research question that continuously improves. Best of luck, and I hope that my thought process can be of some help to you as well!