Women in Chromatography: Will AI Level the Playing Field?

“AI can help more people access knowledge and learn faster regardless of where they start.”

— Kinjal Bhatt, Senior Scientist, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine

“It can work like a kind of catalyst for curiosity, rather than a substitute for it.”

— Ina Varfaj, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Perugia

As artificial intelligence (AI) and new instrumentation move deeper into chromatography workflows, Kinjal Bhatt and Ina Varfaj both come down on the optimistic side of the question, with a shared caveat about who gets access to the tools. Bhatt says she's genuinely excited by both the technology and the scale of effort she's seeing across the industry, and believes AI has the potential to democratize access to knowledge and expertise in the way it's already becoming an "execution accelerator" in daily work—helping people navigate complexity and use existing knowledge faster. She's clear-eyed that uneven access to tools and training could create new barriers, but frames that as an implementation challenge rather than a flaw in the technology itself: continued investment in education and upskilling, she argues, is what determines whether AI becomes an equalizer or a new source of division. Varfaj agrees, and adds a distinction: AI should work as a catalyst for curiosity, not a substitute for it, freeing scientists from repetitive tasks so they can spend more time on the thinking that is required of them. Both scientists are careful to frame themselves as the ones directing the tools rather than the other way around, staying, as Varfaj puts it, educated enough to shape how the technology gets used rather than letting it use them. Bhatt expects the pace of change to keep accelerating, predicting the field will look meaningfully different within a few years as AI reshapes how methods get developed and data is interpreted.

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