Alumni

Graduate students

Dr. Simran Kaur

Simran is from Chandigarh. She obtained her Master’s degree in Biotechnology from Panjab University before joining IISER Mohali in 2013, January. Her research works involved deciphering the roles played by Hedgehog signalling in regulating a wide variety of transcription factors such as Ascl1a, Zic2b and Foxn4, and enzymes such as Mmp9. These findings are published in the journal Cell Reports in 2018. She graduated from IISER Mohali in May 2018.

She worked as a Post-doctoral Fellow with Dr. Yang Hu at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA, and now has transitioned to Applied StemCell Inc., CA, USA.

Dr. Soumitra Mitra

Native to West Bengal, Soumitra completed his integrated Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from St. Xaviers’ College, Kolkata before joining IISER Mohali in 2012 for his Ph.D. His work in the lab involved understanding the regulation of Her4.1/Lin28a/let-7 regulatory axis by pluripotency factor c-Myc and epigenetic regulator Histone deacetylases in zebrafish retina regeneration. His observations are published in iScience in 2018 and Journal of Cell Biology in 2019. He graduated from IISER Mohali in May 2019.

Then, he worked as a Post-doctoral Fellow with Dr. Daniel Goldman at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at Amity University, Noida, India.

Mohammad Anwar Khursheed

Belonging to Giridih, Jharkhand, Anwar obtained his Master’s in Medical Biotechnology from AIIMS New Delhi. He joined IISER Mohali in August 2012. He was working to elucidate the roles of pluripotency factors in retina, fin and heart regeneration in zebrafish.

Dr. Shivangi Gupta

Shivangi, native to Delhi, obtained her B.Tech degree in Biotechnology from USBT, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), New Delhi. She joined IISER Mohali in January 2015. Her research work highlighted the role of tumor suppressor Pten and its interplay with Mmp9/Notch signalling during zebrafish retina regeneration. She graduated from IISER Mohali in February 2021. Her findings got published in the journal Glia in 2022.

Currently, she is working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Dr. Valerie Wallace in Krembil Research Institute, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Mansi Chaudhary

A native to Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, Mansi Chaudhary completed her B.Tech in Biotechnology from USBT, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), New Delhi. She joined IISER Mohali in 2016, August. Her research work was to explore the roles of multifaceted transcription factor Yin Yang1 during retina regeneration. She defended her thesis in November 2023.

Dr. Bindia Chawla

Belonging to Sangrur, Punjab, Bindia obtained her integrated BS-MS dual degree from IISER Mohali before joining the same institute for her PhD in 2017. She worked on understanding the genome architecture dynamics during development and regeneration. She defended her thesis in December 2023.

Currently she is working as a post-doctoral fellow with Thomas A. Reh at University of Washington, USA

Dr. Sharanya Premraj

Sharanya, belonging to Kerala, obtained her B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University in 2016 before joining IISER Mohali as an Int. Ph.D. student. She worked on understanding the role of long non-coding RNA malat1 in retina regeneration in zebrafish and mouse. She defended her thesis in January 2025.

Undergraduate students

Year 2013-14

Sapna Meena (MS)

Year 2014-15

Currently Kranti is working as Scientist ‘B’ in Science Communication at NCMR in NCCS, Pune, India.

Year 2015-16

Priyanka completed her Ph.D. from INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier in Quebec, Canada and is currently doing her postdoctoral research at Yale School of Medicine, USA .

Currently Evelyn is pursuing Ph.D. at Center for Regenerative Therapies TU Dresden, Germany.

Year 2016-17

Riya completed MBA (HR) from MDI, Gurgaon and is currently a Management Consultant at Heidrick and Struggles.

Currently Vijith is pursuing Ph.D. from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tamil Nadu, India.

Year 2017-18

Praveen completed his Ph.D. at University of Cote d’Azur, Nice, France.

Akshai completed his Ph.D. at University of Cote d’Azur, Nice, France.

Pratibha is working as a Teaching Assistant at Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana.

Swathi is currently pursuing Ph.D. at MFPL-Vienna BioCenter, Vienna, Austria.

Year 2018-19

Sushmita Nahar (MS)

Kemdina Christina (MS)

Komal Meena (MS)

Navnoor Kaur Saran (MS)

Year 2019-20

Ajay Akarnia (MS)

Athul (MS)

He is pursuing Ph.D. from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.

Jaskaran Singh (MS)

Jaskaran is pursuing Ph.D. at INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier in Quebec, Canada.

Jithin (MS)

Sapna Meena (MS)

She is doing Ph.D. in Max-Plank-Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Germany.

Trirupa Chakraborty (MS)

She is pursuing Ph.D. in University of Florida, USA

Ziyaurrahman (MS)

He is doing Ph.D. at NCBS, India

Year 2020-21

Nikhil C. (MS)

Nikhil is pursuing Ph.D. in Computational Biology at IMSc, Chennai, India.

Pallavi Joshi (MS)

Year 2021-22

Omkar Desai (Omu) (MS)

Omkar is currently pursuing Ph.D. at Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.

Shrishti (MS)

Shrishti is doing her doctoral studies at School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, UK.

Anisha Pahuja (MS)

Anisha is pursuing Ph.D. from Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), University of Barcelona, Spain.

Spatika (MS)

Spatika is a Felix Scholar and is doing Ph.D. in University of Oxford, UK.

Year 2022-23

Aditya Biswas (MS)

Aditya is currently doing his PhD at University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.

Syed Mohammad Hammad (MS)

Hammad is pursuing his Doctoral studies at University of Leicester (UK).

Aditi (MS)

Anfas (MS)

Diksha (MS) : She is pursuing PhD at TIFR Mumbai.

Himanshi (MS)

Jashan (MS)

Mahima (MS) : She is currently doing her PhD at University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.

Munish (MS)

Rajat (MS)

Raunak (MS)

Ritvik (MS) : He is doing Ph.D. in Max-Plank-Institute – Heart and Lung Research, Germany.

Year 2023-24

Harneet Kaur

Atharva Powar

Swetha

Year 2024-25

Aditi Bhatt

Diwanshi Rao

Rahiba

Basil