Signals

“I began as an electronics and telecommunication engineer but my desire to work in the healthcare field led me to pursue a Master’s degree in biomedical engineering with a focus on image and signal processing. Because I didn’t take biology in junior college, the transition was difficult at first. However as we focused more on the electronics of medical equipment, things became clearer.

I don’t think doing a PhD was even on my radar. I rather wanted to learn and explore the biomedical field more and therefore opted to teach before going for research. It was a learning phase for me during which I developed a strong interest in comprehending the complexity of the human brain and the processing of cognitive ability. I was the youngest among the professors. However, I was never looked down upon by my colleagues; they instead saw potential in me to do research and pursue a PhD. After two years of being a professor, I qualified for a JRF position funded by BRNS in Jaipur which gave me an opportunity to work with doctors and I even developed a software for classifying EEG (brain) signals. That later went on to be pretty helpful for my PhD which revolved around the study of healthy aging in young and older adults.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was a lack of facilities and adequate funds which I believe is a persisting concern in such a large and populated country like India. However, during the first…