My fascination with the living world dates back to the school days where I saw a whole new world under the microscope, which then became my motivation to pursue this enigmatic field of science called biology. It was only natural for me to have taken forward this admiration of mine, by graduating with a degree in Botany Honors from WBSU, India. During my   bachelor’s I was deeply intrigued by the molecular biology of different genes that work  together to maintain the functionality of an organism. I soon realized that science has  evolved so majestically that the barriers between different branches of science are gradually  fading, promoting a lot of interdisciplinary work thus achieving a greater goal. While updating  myself with going on current research I realized that Bioinformatics allow scientists to study life processes at the smallest and most intricate levels.

My master’s in bioinformatics at Pondicherry University, India gave me a better view of how this interdisciplinary concoction works. I worked as a summer intern at Indian Statistical Institute and got an opportunity to co-author a paper- “Lowest copy nuclear genes in disentangling plant  molecular systematics”. With my new-found interest in phylogenetic analysis, I did my master’s thesis work on performing phylogenetic analysis of HPV involved in cutaneous and genital warts. After finishing my master’s I worked as a research assistant in an evolutionary immunology lab at Ashoka University, India. There I worked to analyze the molecular underpinnings of adaptation against various stress factors like infection, irradiation, and disease under variable environmental conditions such as malnutrition, climate warming, and the high frequency of multiple infections using transcriptomics in Tribolium castaneum and Drosophila melanogaster.

All this stirred my enthusiasm and passion towards evolutionary biology, so I joined as a PhD student in Prof. Christian Schlötterer’s group at the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics. Here, my work will be focused on understanding mutation order speciation and the molecular underpinnings leading to reproductive isolation that is causing this type of speciation.