My background

I started off as a student of Botany (classical), and moved into plant molecular biology as a graduate student at the University of Pune, India. I joined the University of Texas at Austin for my Ph.D., hoping to focus on plant-pathogen interactions. One thing led to another, and I ended up in the computational biology field, applying in silico techniques to predict protein-protein interactions in Edward Marcotte's lab at UT. After finishing my Ph.D. in 2003, I joined Chris Stoeckert's lab at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in February 2004.


Interests

I have many. On the professional side, I am very interested in education, science policy, attitudes towards science in the society and the goverment, and the overall perception of what science really means to people. Starting March 11, 2007, I will post my comments on this matter in my blog on the Nature Network.

Like every third person on the planet, I like photography (I even have a name-sake who is full-time into it). I haven't really owned a fancy camera ever, but I do own an Olympus fixed-lens with zoom (Infiniti Zoom210), and a more recent Nikon Coolpix digital (Coolpix 5600). I used to own an Olympus D-370, which was lost. Sure there are limitations of the fixed-lens, but at times, with good light and a good angle, SLRs sure do seem overrated. But like all amateurs, I have neglected my slides, and recent scans of some show damage. In any case, a couple of samples (plan to put up more sometime...).