PhD Student
I grew up in Hyderabad, India and obtained a Bachelor of Science (Research) in Biotechnology with a minor in chemistry from Shiv Nadar University, Delhi NCR in 2020. Here, I developed a fascination with synthetic biology, and helped establish an iGEM team in 2019. For my bachelor thesis, I worked on mitochondrial chaperone proteins in the yeast model Saccharomyces cerevisiae with Dr. Koyeli Mapa’s group. I then studied at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany to pursue master studies in Biology, with a scholarship from the Cluster for Excellence in Plant Sciences (CEPLAS), graduating in 2023. In my master thesis, I worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) in Cologne with Dr. Tonni Grube Andersen’s group, to characterize and develop transgenic plants with modified secondary cell wall depositions in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the oilseed crop Camelina sativa. I joined Macarena Marín’s group at the University of Lausanne in January 2024, where I am working on understanding tissue-specific lipid metabolism in root nodules of legume plants. I aim to utilize genetic re-wiring, microscopy, transcriptomic and physiological analyses to understand the function and regulation of diffusion barriers in root nodules.
Besides academic endeavors, I enjoy a good game of chess, cooking and playing music on instruments like the tabla or guitar.