We bring to you conversations with postdoctoral fellows in India wherein they’ll talk about their research, career, and some beyond the obvious details about the postdoctoral community in India.

This is an overview of the podcasts releasing starting May 2022. The 1^st series of ​‘Radio PDF’ features Dhananjay Chaturvedi, Laasya Samhita, Mithu Baidya, and Nimita Pandey from NCBS Bangalore, IIT Kanpur & DST CPR-IISc Bengaluru respectively.

If you are a postdoc in India and would like to be a part of this podcast series, drop us a note at IndiaBiospeaks@​indiabioscience.​org!

Stay tuned for more updates from Radio PDF!

Note to listeners: This recording was done over a zoom meeting call due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in a slightly diminished audio quality with some mild disturbances in the recording, compared to a studio-quality recording.

[00:00:00]- Intro:

You are listening to IndiaBiospeaks, voices from the life science community in India.

[00:00:10]- Suchibrata Borah:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our first podcast series on the post-doctoral researchers of India, Radio PDF. Postdoc or post-doctoral fellow is a step in the journey towards becoming independent researchers, a temporary breach between being a Ph.D. student and an independent researcher. PDFs play an important role in driving the growth of the research ecosystem by embarking on new research avenues and pushing the boundaries of the known, mentoring lab members, and even partaking in the many logistics needed to run a successful lab. The postdoc community in India is growing, active and ambitious. We bring you conversations with postdoctoral fellows in India wherein they will talk about their research, career, and some beyond-the-obvious details about the postdoctoral community in India. Four episodes, four stories, and four postdoctoral researchers.

[00:01:30]- Dhananjay Chaturvedi:

You, as a postdoc, have to find what niche you can fulfill, and you have to convince the organization that you are the right person for the job. This takes some amount of versatility.

[00:01:45]- Nimita Pandey:

The sense of community gives you a lot of strength and confidence to pursue what you’re doing as a post-doctoral and also gives you a direction for your future assignments.

[00:02:01]- Mithu Baidya:

You know, I can see, I mean, as working in this lab for the last five years, I can see a discernible change in my way of thinking and my career graphic. So, and I owe a lot of it to Arun, in fact.

[00:02:18-] Laasya Samhita:

In academics you are in your to criticism. You know, you’re used to, your work is criticized. Your, every experiment that doesn’t work is critiqued. Your presentations are critiqued, your writing is critiqued. And when you first step in after bachelor’s or even after master’s, and you’re not used to this, it can be very tough. You have to develop mental toughness as you go along.

[00:02:38]- Suchibrata Borah:

That was Dhananjay Chaturvedi, Nimita Pandey, Mithu Baidya, and Laasya Samhita. Working at different institutes, they all have interesting stories to tell. Soon these conversations will be aired in full swing. Stay tuned with us for more. If you are a postdoc in India and would like to be a part of this podcast series, drop us a note at indiabiospeaks@​indiabioscience.​org. And also, follow us on Spotify for instant updates.

[00:03:16]- Ananthapadmanabhan:

This season is produced by Ananthapadmanabhan in collaboration with IndiaBioscience, mixed and edited at Scicle Podcast Productions. Scicle is a podcast company where we create exciting and insightful podcasts on science and society. We also cover policy, paper, and everything that matters to human life. Available on a bunch of streaming platforms. For more, head over to our show notes. 

[00:03:46]- Outro:

If you are passionate about scientific research, communication, outreach and science education as we are, please connect and engage with us. And here are some ways that you can do so. Visit our website at www​.indi​a​bio​science​.org. Subscribe to our newsletters. Write for us and join our online discussion forum at dis​cuss​.indi​a​bio​science​.org.

Advertise jobs, grants and events in the life sciences on our website. And feel free to contact us anytime at hello@​indiabioscience.​org. Until next time, enjoy your science and stay engaged to enable change.