Scholar Square was founded by two Scholars
“We wanted to be in a space where we could practice scholarship as community — but we
couldn’t find one.
So we built it.”
They longed to practice scholarship in ways the academy no longer made possible:
to think slowly, write messily, read broadly, and publish meaningfully — instead of thinking efficiently, writing fast, reading strategically, and publishing prolifically.
For a long time, they thought they were alone in that feeling.
But when they introduced Scholar Square to the world, within a month more than a hundred scholars had gathered — each echoing the same longing.
What began as two scholars searching for meaning in their own work has become a growing community of over 150 scholars dedicated to making scholarship meaningful again.
More About Our Founder-Scholars
Dr San Choudhury
San (PhD, University of Nottingham) is a scholar and independent researcher whose work bridges philosophy, organisation studies, and critical theory. Her doctoral research developed a philosophically inspired approach to hybridity in organisational life, focusing on the material production of hybrid space and time.
Since completing her doctorate, San has pursued her research independently, working as a research assistant on two projects while furthering her own inquiries into scholarship as a process and the identity of the scholar. She is also co-editor of The Scholarly Letter, a publication devoted to critical writing on neoliberal academia and the search for more meaningful ways of doing scholarly work.
Her motivation for founding Scholar Square is two-fold: 1). to create a more accessible and conducive environment for developing as scholars, grounded in the belief that research and learning thrive in community; 2). to share the skills, lessons, and practices she has learned outside the closed walls of academia, making scholarship a collective and open pursuit.
Reece Barlow
Reece is a molecular biologist by training who began a PhD in 2021 but chose to step away from academia within the first year. Unwilling to leave research behind, he spent the next three and a half years in Open Access publishing, working closely with Editors-in-Chief and senior editorial board members to develop a portfolio of biological and medical journals, commissioning content informed by extensive bibliometric analysis.
For the past year and a half, he has worked as a writer, science communicator, and independent scholar. Alongside Scholar Square, he co-edits The Scholarly Letter, a weekly newsletter exploring the integrity of thought, the future of scholarship, and the deeper meaning of intellectual work. His research interests span the philosophy of biology, science and technology studies, metascience, the history of science, and intellectual history, while retaining a keen interest in scientometrics, bibliometrics, and publishing policy.
As a non-traditional scholar himself, Reece knows what it means to remain invested in scholarship while standing outside the academy. His motivation for co-founding Scholar Square is to create the kind of space he could not find: where those on unconventional scholarly paths can connect, share ideas, and build community.
