ECDN Rep for the School of Biosciences 
What is your academic background and your current research field?
I obtained Ph. D. in biotechnology from CDFD, India and worked as Post-Doc at NCCS, India and UMass, USA before moving to the University of Birmingham (UoB). My tenure at UoB started as a Newton International Fellow sponsored by the Royal Society, UK to work on understanding the role of chaperonins in tuberculosis, using Zebrafish model system. The work during this fellowship led to interesting observations, which helped me to attract BBSRC responsive mode funding. I have been a Research Fellow at the School of Biosciences since 2019. My research interests include protein folding, bacterial genetics and infectious diseases.
What is your role as a ECDN Rep and how can postdocs in your school contact you?
I have been one of the ECDN Reps for the school of Biosciences. I understand different work cultures, thanks to my working experience in the USA, India and the UK. Therefore, I am keen to support and encourage postdocs and ECRs from different backgrounds, by providing apt information on the opportunities available at the UoB for career development and employability. Please feel free to contact me by email (S.K.CM@bham.ac.uk) and or in my lab in the Biosciences Tower at T101. I am open to meet for a chat and/or a coffee-meeting.
What do you feel are the benefits of the ECDN programme for postdocs and what do you feel have been the benefits to you from being a postdoc rep?
I have been benefitted by several fantastic ECDN’s career-development and training programmes during my three year stint at the UoB. I strongly recommend these events for all the ECRs for the training offered and for the boundless opportunity(ies) to network with the other ECRs across the UoB. This prompted me to play more active role in ECDN and I joined as the rep. I am enjoying interacting several ECRs across the university and understand their perspectives. Therefore, I strongly believe that ECDN is for us, make the best out of it.