Indian Institute of Science Education and Research-Kolkata (IISER-K), India

I completed my B.Sc. (Bachelor of Science) with Honours in Botany from the University of Calcutta, India in the year 2000. Subsequently I was offered the ACU administered DFID Scholarship to pursue M.Sc. studies in Marine Resource Development and Protection at the Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, UK from 2001-2002. After completing my M.Sc. studies I went on to complete my Ph.D. from the University of Plymouth and Plymouth Marine Laboratory in UK for three years (2002-2005). During my PhD studies I worked on a taxonomically intractable group of marine meiobenthic organisms, the free-living marine nematodes. I applied molecular biological techniques to gain a better understanding about the diversity and biogeographic patterns of free-living marine nematodes from European waters. In the beginning of 2006 I moved to USA to pursue my postdoctoral research at Princeton University. I was lucky enough to work in the laboratory of Professor Bess Ward (Department of Geosciences, Princeton University), one of the foremost leaders in the field of microbial ecology and marine nitrogen cycling. During my postdoctoral days I worked on the molecular dynamics of marine phytoplankton communities and phytoplankton bloom formation. After completing my postdoctoral research, I returned to India in the beginning of 2009 to take up a faculty position in the newly established IISER-K and subsequently established a new research group on integrative taxonomy and microbial ecology.