The Nucleus, a student-run newspaper dedicated to providing easy-to-read scientific articles, released its third volume on Nov. 8. This volume was the first to feature a full cohort of writers, editors and designers, and covers topics from technology to ecology. 

The Nucleus released 16 articles in the volume, with topics ranging from refreezing glaciers to lesbian lizards. There was no central theme, so the writers were allowed to contribute to any topic that interested them.

Zareen Shaikh, the head of internal affairs for The Nucleus and a senior majoring in intelligence and cyber operations, said the club put a lot of effort into marketing the new volume, reaching out to both USC and Los Angeles organizations to ensure their work was seen by the scientific community and beyond.

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“With a lot of misinformation after COVID, we’re trying to make sure that people have reliable sources that they can look at,” Shaikh said. “[The Nucleus] isn’t written for the average human biology student. This could be read by a Marshall [School of Business] student, Kaufman [School of Dance] student, anyone can read it and just learn more about things they might be interested in.”

Shaikh said she wishes to give members the best experience possible, and that she’s enjoyed being able to mentor the club’s underclassmen. 

“Srikar [the founder and CEO of The Nucleus] came to me with this idea at the end of our sophomore year … seeing his passion for it, I just really wanted to contribute and be a part of that,” Shaikh said. “Although a lot of our members have come with the intention to get published, write articles, get that kind of thing on their resume, we have built a really fun and engaging community.”  

Hari Srinivasan, the substantive editor for The Nucleus and a senior majoring in neuroscience, said it took a month to create their latest volume. It took 15 writers, four rounds of edits from 13 editors and a design team of seven people to put it all together. 

“I’m proud of all of [the writers] for pushing through. I’m really happy that they were all able to communicate with their editors and find their footing in this club, because a lot of them are also freshmen. So I’m also very proud of them for balancing their first experience in college with also publishing these great articles that I can really tell they put a lot of time into,” Srinivasan said. 

Miles Lee, the lead copy editor for The Nucleus and a senior majoring in business administration with an emphasis in business analytics, said Srikar Kolluru, his roommate, invited him to join at the start of the club’s formation. Lee said he appreciated the club’s mission. 

“As a business major — someone that doesn’t have that huge medical background — I know that it can be hard to really find digestible content. I know I found myself reading articles that were way over my head,” Lee said. “I just wanted to help people who feel how I feel, and reach out to them with some really digestible, easy-to-understand content.”

Publishing the first volume was both chaotic and exciting, Lee said. He said there were many meetings between writers, editors, designers and the executive board to prepare for the release. He also said that they planned to use what they learned to improve the process for their spring publication.

“It’s definitely been a whirlwind over the last couple of years … in terms of publishing and getting ready, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that I didn’t even know about beforehand,” Lee said. “There’s just been so many different things going on all the time. It’s somewhat of an organized chaos. It’s been really fun.”

Lee said the older members of the club got to watch new members grow into their own style of writing and learn how to collaborate with the editors and graphic designers, and that he hoped their marketing efforts enabled all of the club members’ hard work to be seen. 

“Our club is trying to make sure that no matter your background, your age, who you are, you can always learn something, and I really just hope that at the end of the day when these articles are released, we can draw a large enough audience that can look at them, read them and say, ‘Hey, this looks interesting, and it helps me learn something,’” Lee said. 

Disclaimer: Srikar Kolluru is news deputy photo editor at the Daily Trojan. He was not directly involved in the reporting of this article.