Bina Venkataraman

Washington, D.C.

Columnist covering topics related to the future

Education: Brown University, bachelor of arts in international relations; Harvard Kennedy School, master of public policy

Bina Venkataraman writes a column on the future for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she served as editorial page editor of the Boston Globe, overseeing the news organization’s opinion coverage and its editorial board during two presidential impeachment trials, the 2020 election, the coronavirus pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the U.S. Capitol insurrection and Boston’s historic 2021 mayoral election. During her tenure, the Globe had two Pulitzer finalists in editorial writing. Venkataraman previously served as a senior climate adviser in the Obama White House, as director
Latest from Bina Venkataraman

Why so much fuss about an eclipse?

There’s good reason for people to get excited about a predictable alignment of the Earth, moon and sun.

April 2, 2024
What it looked like in Argentina in 2019. (Marcos Brindicci/AP)

Why you’re always forgetting things, according to a memory scientist

Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath offers a scientifically robust exploration of the brain in his book “Why We Remember.”

February 23, 2024

Flying is a nightmare. But it could be fixed.

Step 1: Stop treating it like a luxury.

February 8, 2024
People whose flights have been delayed are seen sleeping at Kahului Airport in Hawaii on Aug. 10. (Mengshin Lin for The Washington Post)

What it will take to make clean energy affordable — for everyone

We have the technologies to reduce energy bills and cut fossil fuel emissions — if only all states would act.

January 30, 2024
Workers from Solar Solution install solar panels on a home in Southeast D.C. on Feb. 23, 2022. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post)

What a new genetic therapy should teach us about biomedical ‘progress’

A treatment for a disease that primarily afflicts the underprivileged underscores the need to rethink how innovative medicines are brought to market.

December 28, 2023
An electron microscope image shows, at top, a blood cell altered by sickle cell disease. (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/National Institutes of Health/AP)

The best concert of your life might not be on Earth

What if it were possible to go to space to experience something transcendent, something that helps us better understand ourselves as humans and earthlings?

December 26, 2023

Can AI solve medical mysteries? It’s worth finding out.

Patients with rare diseases often spend years trying to find out what’s wrong with them.

November 15, 2023

In Maine, a return of tribal land shows how conservation can succeed

The environmental movement’s most promising shot at future success is to reach for Native American conservation strategies from the past.

November 1, 2023

Can washing machines change the future? Bogotá’s new ‘care blocks’ show how.

Bogotá’s new “care blocks” give women a break from caring for children and parents and teach them the skills they need for independent careers.

September 27, 2023
Sightseers take photographs of the cable-car system over Ciudad Bolívar in Bogotá, Colombia, in May 2019. (Juan Cristobal Cobo/Bloomberg News)

A new tool in the fight to save the planet? A 6th-century Roman doctrine.

A recent court decision, based on an ancient human right, reflects a promising legal strategy to push emissions reduction for the sake of future generations.

September 1, 2023