Academic evolution

“I felt an inclination towards pursuing industrial research in areas like forensics or animal biotechnology back in high school; and that is why I opted to do a Bachelor’s in Microbiology followed by a Master’s in Biotechnology from University of Calcutta. My perspective however changed during one of my summer internships at IISc, Bangalore that exposed me to the idea of a PhD in India and essence of doing good research.

It may sound naive but at the beginning of my tenure, I had no big expectations from my PhD, I simply wanted to learn and do good science. But the reality of PhD is indeed a different ball game. Apart from changing our outlook towards science and research, the journey changes one as a person, it teaches persistence and perseverance, trains an individual to be strong and dedicated.

Initially, I faced challenges owing to my strive for perfection in data collection. I used to over-analyse even the small observations in the laboratory to make it perfect; in this process I often failed to appreciate the beauty of having unexpected but perhaps logically correct results. Gradually I realised that research, especially in biological sciences did not always match with the preconceived hypothesis, there was beauty in variability and this unpredictable journey of finding something new and unexpected was worth enjoying.