Karishma S Kaushik returned to India in 2018 as a Ramalingaswami fellow to start her independent research group at Savitribai Phule Pune University. Now, as a fifth-year faculty fellow in the Indian science ecosystem, in this article, she shares specific considerations to enable colleagues in navigating this professional opportunity.

Going through scientific training and then getting a job is a lot like this train ride. It takes a while to complete, is sometimes bumpy, and often unpredictable. But it is interesting and interactive, especially if you are open to such possibilities.

A couple of weeks back it was my first one year in Kolkata and India after pretty long overstay in the USA. Amidst all fear, speculations, we took a rather bold decision to come back to India. My position was not permanent; it still isn't, but that rarely affects my work or my daily functioning. We left our comfortable jobs, beautiful home, green-card to work for our country. Now after … More

Setting up my own lab has been an exhilarating experience, which I have thoroughly enjoyed the past few months. Mid semester recess brought the much-needed break and without much realization month of March knocked at our door. I was oblivious as to what was in store for me.

After I joined the perfect new institute to perform research and teaching simultaneously, the next logical step I embarked upon was setting up the lab. This required finding vendors, comparing specifications and pricing and procuring desired material. This was a responsibility I was utterly unprepared for and was completely naive in the vendor's market.