Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, Aiken, SC, USA Advisor: Dr Guha Dharmarajan Dissertation Title: “Avian Haemosporidian dynamics in the Western Ghats Sky Island bird system”
M.S. Biotechnology, 2008 - 2010
SRM Arts and Science College, University of Madras, Madras, India Thesis Title: “Screening of MDR1 gene Polymorphisms in non-tribal population of Kerala”
B.S. Biotechnology, 2005 - 2008
M.G.M College, Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur, India
CONFERENCES ORAL PRESENTATIONS
Host phylogeny matters: Examining sources of variation in infection risk by blood parasites across a tropical montane bird community in India. SICB Annual Meeting, Virtual. January 2021
Geographical and host species barriers differentially affect generalist and specialist parasite community structure in a tropical sky-island archipelago. 1st Annual Savannah River Ecology Laboratory Graduate Student Symposium, Windsor, South Carolina, USA. July 2019
Eco-evolutionary dynamics of avian haemosporidian parasites in a tropical sky island archipelago of Western Ghats, India. Evolution, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. June 2019
Biogeography of Haemosporidian Parasites Infecting Diverse Bird Communities in the Shola Sky Islands of the Western Ghats, India.9th Biennial Conference International Biogeography Society, Malaga, Spain. January 2019
Bugs in birds: Hitch-hiking across the tropical sky-island bird community of Western Ghats India. 4th International Workshop on Avian Malaria,National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, USA. September 2015
Exploring the effects of patchiness and fragmentation: genetic connectivity of a sky island bird in the Western Ghats, Student conference on Conservation Science, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. September 2013Press coverage
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
Host and Environmental Factors Differentially Affect Parasite Community Structure and Infection Dynamics in a Montane Biodiversity Hotspot. Evolution,Providence, Rhode Island, USA. June 2019
Host and Environmental Factors Differentially Affect Parasite Community Structure and Infection Dynamics in a Montane Biodiversity Hotspot. 29th Molecular Parasitology & Vector Biology Symposium, CTEGD,Athens, Georgia, USA. May 2019
Avian malaria dynamics in a tropical sky-island bird community of Western Ghats, Southern India. Warnell Graduate Student Symposium, Athens, Georgia, USA. January 2018
Bugs in birds: Hitch-hiking across the tropical sky-island bird community of Western Ghats India. Frontiers in Modern Biology, IISER, Kolkata, India. December 2015
Mind the Gap: effect of geographical barriers and rivers on genetic structure in animals. Annual talks, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India. January 2013
WORKSHOPS ATTENDED
Participated in the “7th Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases” held at University of Washington, Seattle, USA. July 2015
Participated in Winter School on “Analysis of Massively parallel sequencing (NGS) data” held at National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kolkata, India. March 2015
Participated in a student conference “Young Ecologist Talk and Interact” held at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. October 2010
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Teaching Assistant (Summer 2019) Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia
Assisted with instruction of molecular genetics module of a 10-day course on Field and Molecular Techniques in Wildlife Research and Management
Created course structure and prepared class activities focusing on molecular techniques
Trained undergraduate and graduate students in basic molecular techniques (e.g., DNA extraction, PCR, disease diagnostics), population genetics and phylogenetics
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
Graduate Research Assistantship, University of Georgia. 2016 – 2020
Travel award ($650) by University of Georgia Graduate School. July 2019
Junior Research Fellowship, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, India. 2014 – 2016
Travel grant ($1000) by NSF-sponsored Malaria Research Coordination Network. September 2015
Scholarship award ($900) towards registration costs by the Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington. July 2015
Travel grant ($1300) by Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata. July 2015
ACADEMIC SERVICE
Co-organized Graduate Student Symposium 2019 at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. Responsible for planning content, organization and oversight of various Symposium committees and aided non-student personnel communication
Served as Facilities Committee Representative as part of the Graduate Student Organization at SREL (Fall 2019 - Spring 2020)
Reviewer for: Molecular Ecology, International Journal of Parasitology
Member: American Ornithological Society, International Biogeography Society, Society for the Study of Evolution, Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology