Mayurika Lahiri, Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, reflects on her long association with the Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM) in this conversation with us. She attended the inaugural edition in 2009 after returning from her postdoctoral fellowship in the US, participated again as a YIM alumnus in 2019, and will return as a mentor at YIM 2026.
In a new LinkedIn post, the CEO of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, outlined how the foundation is evolving into India’s apex body for research, development, and innovation. Alongside strengthening core research grants, ANRF is preparing to operationalise ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund, designed to channel patient capital into deep-tech, high-impact projects.
Molecular geneticist Pallavi Kshetrapal, Associate Professor at BRIC-THSTI, traces her scientific journey from curiosity-driven beginnings to mentoring and leadership. Reflecting on the inaugural Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM) 2009, she highlights how mentorship, collaboration, and authentic science shaped her career and continue to strengthen India’s research ecosystem.
When Neha Jain walked into her first Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM) in 2017 as a postdoctoral researcher from the United States, she didn’t know what to expect. “As a postdoc, you usually don’t get to see the other side, or meet directors, or meet mentors”, she recalls. To her surprise, leaders from institutions reached out even before YIM, and those conversations soon turned into real opportunities. Within a year, she landed her first faculty position at Ahmedabad University. A year later, she moved to the Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, where she is now an Associate Professor. Looking back, she calls YIM 2017 ‘a huge milestone’ that shaped her career in India.
When Sudarshan Gadadhar first attended the Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM), he came in with a lot of questions. “I was not sure about where I was heading, about the kind of science I wanted to do, and whether I was ready for the challenges of independent research”, he recalls. YIM gave him more than answers; it provided perspectives, peers in similar transitions, and mentors who had walked the path before.
Bharat Bhusan Patnaik is as an Associate Professor at the PG Department of Biosciences and Biotechnology at Fakir Mohan University, Balasore, Odisha. In 2024, he received the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) Travel Grant for his presentation at the EMBO workshop: Establishing state-of-the-art mollusc genomics held at the University of Namur, Belgium. In this article, he shares his story of a failure that turned into a successful EMBO Travel Grant.
Posted on in Other, Networking, Funding & Personal Experience
