IndiaBioscience
Activity in 2019
2019
Crafting your Career — Jodhpur
This workshop was held on Thursday, October 31, 2019, at IIT-Jodhpur. It was attended by ~100 from over four academic institutions including from IIT-Jodpur, and AIIMS-Jodhpur.
The workshop provided hands on training by the IndiaBioscience team. This training oriented the students to understand their skills, interests and values to find matching career options. It also trained them on researching various career options, navigating the job application process, preparing compelling CVs and resumes, and how to network efficiently. Further, it touched upon the standards of professionalism and work ethics and the critical need for sound mentoring throughout one’s career progression.
Students (who were mostly pursuing their PhD, few medical students and masters students) indicated that the found the sessions useful in planning their professional careers and that they would recommend this workshop to others. Many indicated that they found the workshop very interactive. The students shared that the training provided a new awareness of their skills, interests, and values and that they learnt many new tools to craft their careers and understood the importance of networking in navigating their career paths.
Crafting your Career, Kolkata 2019
This workshop was held on Friday, September 20, 2019 at Presidency University. It was attended by ninety nine students across Kolkata from more than 10 academic institutions including from Presidency University.
The workshop comprised of two sessions. The one in the morning was a hands on training by the IndiaBioscience team. This training oriented the students to understand their skills, interests and values to find matching career options. It also trained them on researching various career options, navigating the job application process, preparing compelling CVs and resumes, and how to network efficiently. Further, it touched upon the standards of professionalism and work ethics and the critical need of sound mentoring throughout one’s career progression.
The afternoon session featured talks by successful science professionals across the spectrum (academic research, education, data science, technical marketing, science management, science communication and outreach). The speakers shared their career journey with the students, inspiring them to think unconventionally and along what they would find most fulfilling.
Feedback from Students
Students (who were mostly pursuing their Masters, few PhDs and research scholars) indicated that the found the sessions useful in planning their future career and that they would recommend this workshop to others.
National Consultation Meeting under PMMMNMTT
Teaching Learning Centre, NITTTR Bhopal is organized a “National Consultation Meeting” on 5th& 6th September 2019. The objectives of the meeting were:
• Share achievements, teaching and learning deliverables, of centres under PMMMNMTT.
• Disseminate success stories of centres under PMMMNMTT.
• Formulate sustainability policies of centres and mission.
• Explore avenues of vocationalisation of higher education towards employment, entrepreneurship and start-up.
We presented the achievements of Subject-based network creation of life science educators.
Regional Young Investigators’ Meeting — Delhi
IndiaBioscience has been organizing Young Investigators’ Meetings (YIM) over the past 11 years to enable and provide a platform for intellectual exchange among young scientists across different scientific disciplines. In order to allow more such interactions to happen at a local level, Regional Young Investigator meetings (RYIM) were begun in 2018.
The first two Regional YIMs in Hyderabad and Kolkata were highly successful and allowed researchers from across disciplines to come together to collaborate and share their expertise.
The third meeting in a row, RYIM — Delhi was held on 6 – 7 August 2019 at NIPGR, Delhi. The meeting was organised by Jagadis Gupta Kapuganti and Senthil-Kumar Muthappa from NIPGR, Divya Chandran, Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB), Mukesh Jain, Jawaharlal Lal Nehru University (JNU), and Rohini Garg, Shiv Nadar University.
On behalf of IndiaBioscience — Smita Jain gave an overview of IndiaBioscience and insisted upon having more such meetings at the regional level to foster networking and collaborations. Manjula Harirkrishna presented the IndiaBiocience poster and it was well-received by the attendees.
The meeting united active academic researchers, industry representatives, funding body representatives, and students from across Delhi.
A detailed report of this meeting was covered by Aditi Jain.
Careers in Science Talk at MACFAST College, Tiruvalla
As part of the G.N. Rakmachandran Science Club activity at School of Life Sciences, MACFAST College, Tiruvalla, Smita Jain was invited to give a talk on ‘Science Careers’ to the master level students pursuing courses in Biotechnology (Animal and Plant), Biochemistry and Bioinformatics. All the students of the Life Sciences attended an hour-long talk that elaborated on the current trends of the field, the different career avenues and best ways to craft and navigate through careers.
The talk that was listened very patiently by the students and was followed by a very good discussion session where students opened up and asked several questions related to their careers and speakers’ journey. As part of the visit, The Head of the Life Sciences department, Biju Dharmapalan also interviewed Smita Jain that was recorded for the college radio for the benefit of their listeners.
The discussion revolved around careers and the best way to navigate it.
India Alliance Fellow Meeting 2019
IndiaBioscience was invited to be part of the India Alliance Fellows Meeting 2019 in Bangalore from 13 – 15 June 2019. Smita Jain, Manjula Harikrishna, Lakshmi Ganesan represented IndiaBioscience at the event. They presented the IndiaBioscience work poster and interacted to the India Alliance fellows and other participants. IndiaBioscience brochures were distributed during the meeting to the attendees. The event was covered by live tweets on social media.
The poster was well received by the participants and they showed genuine interest in engaging with IndiaBioscience. IndiaBioscience could make connections with many active researchers during the course of three days.
The detailed report can be read here.“The Craft of Science Communication”: Workshop by the Bangalore Life Sciences Cluster (BLISc)
IndiaBioscience was represented by Shreya Ghosh during a five-day workshop on science communication held at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, during which she conducted a stand-alone module on written communication for scientists. The learning objectives for the students were:
- To understand why we use written communication and learn about the different types of writing that a scientist may need to use
- To learn how to assess audiences and decide on the appropriate medium, format and language to use
- To understand the underlying structures of different kinds of scientific writing, including a scientific paper and a popular science article
- To identify what makes a good science story and learn how to use storytelling techniques in science writing
- To overcome some of the common fears of writers — the blank page, unseen errors, bored readers etc.
- To learn how to identify and eliminate jargon
- To learn how to draw audiences in with well-crafted headlines, ledes and visuals.
A detailed report on this course may be found here.
Crafting your Career, Mumbai 2019
This workshop aimed to introduce PhD and MSc students in the life sciences to various career options that are presently available in the Indian scientific ecosystem, as well as enable them to make informed choices by evaluating their own abilities and inclinations. The workshop was co-organized by IndiaBioscience, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, and The Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Navi Mumbai.
The morning session of the workshop consisted of talks by seven different science professionals who discussed their individual career journeys and the opportunities available in their field of work. The speakers for this session were — Savita Ayyar (Jaquaranda Tree), Vishakha Mangale (OmiX Research and Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd), Debjani Paul (IIT Bombay), Lipika Sahoo (LifeIntelect), Subhojit Sen (CEBS, University of Mumbai), Swagata Chakraborty (Educational Initiative Trust) and Cheryl Travasso (Edelman India). The presentations for all the talks can be found here.
The second session consisted of a hands-on interactive workshop conducted by IndiaBioscience trainers Smita Jain, Lakshmi Ganesan and Shreya Ghosh. The session included modules wherein students were trained to evaluate their individual skills, interests and values, research career options thoroughly, conduct informational interviews, build skills for their chosen career path, navigate the job application process, build, grow and maintain their professional networks, understand the concepts of professionalism and work ethics, and finally, harness the power of role models and mentors.
The workshop was held on 28 April, 2019 at IIT Bombay. The full meeting report will be available soon.
Young Investigator Meeting 2019
The annual Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM) brought together exceptional young and senior scientists, heads of institutions, and representatives from funding agencies for interactions focusing on science careers, mentoring and networking. The program featured illuminating talks and panel discussions by mentors that focused on a wide variety of topics ranging from choosing the right research problem, publishing, personnel management, funding opportunities and mentorship. Senior scientists described their scientific journeys providing inspirational and amusing anecdotes about their experiences with younger scientists who are establishing their careers.
YIM 2019 was held between 6 – 10 March 2019 at Guwahati. Read report here. The videos from the conference can be found here.
Crafting your Career, Delhi 2019
IndiaBioscience conducted its first ‘Crafting your Career’ workshop at the Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB), Faridabad, on 1 Feb 2019. The workshop was attended by >60 students from throughout the Delhi NCR region.
During the morning session of the workshop, five different science professionals from various fields spoke about their career paths. The speakers were Suman Govil (Former Senior Advisor, DBT), Subhra Priyadarshini (Nature India), Puneet Gupta (NextGenInvitro Diagnostics Pvt Ltd), Deepak T Nair (RCB), and Syed Tarique Abdullah (LENNOV IP Consultants Pvt. Ltd). The afternoon session consisted of a hands-on interactive workshop where the participants were taught how to choose a career path and navigate it effectively, through training modules on self-assessment, skill-building, networking, job application process, professionalism etc. The trainers for the hands-on workshop were Smita Jain, Lakshmi Ganesan and Shreya Ghosh from IndiaBioscience.
