About me

I am a curious person who enjoys talking to people, tinkering with ideas, illustrating, and thinking outside the box. Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Biodiversity Genomics lab at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Born and trained in India until my PhD, I moved to Germany to pursue a PhD with the German Academic Exchange Service’s scholarship. My research has focused on speciation at different scales—from microevolutionary processes like population divergence to macroevolutionary perspectives on species and trait diversification. While most of my pre-doctoral and doctoral research focused on reptile systems, I pivoted towards comparative genomics with the EU Horizon’s Marie Curie postdoctoral grant. Through this work, I developed novel perspectives to measure genomic rearrangements and later provided an opinion on the putative roles of 3D genome organisation in speciation. How genomes evolve, and how their evolutionary paths influence speciation and trait evolution in organisms is the big question of my research. More recently I have been thinking about the role of epigenetic changes to genomes and it's effects on genome and organismal evolution. I thoroughly enjoy communicating science to the public and I am passionate about good mentorship practices, equity, diversity, and the growth of women in academia.

News!

July 2023
Having moved from organism-focused research to more question-based research, I am so happy to be starting another postdoc with Prof. Kay Lucek studying the (epi-)genomic architecture of chromosomal rearrangements in Carex (sedges!). 

July 2021
Absolutely excited to start my Postdoc with Dr. Jeffrey Streicher & Prof. Anjali Goswami at the Natural History Museum in London.

March 2021
Defended my thesis on the 23rd and passed my PhD! For the next few months I am going to flaunt my Dr. title!

February 2021
So thrilled to have been awarded EU Horizon 2020's  Marie Skłodowska–Curie Individual fellowship

December 2020
I submitted my PhD thesis!