Scholars score big!

The Newton Bhaba PhD programme is one of the most coveted academic programmes in the world. And three of the city’s scholars Swati Dahariya, Chalasani Danteswari and Mouboni Dutta have successfully marked their four-month academic trip to the United Kingdom as a part of the fellowship. 

The scholars are from the acclaimed Life Sciences Department of University of Hyderabad and will be working on their specialisations, based on their PhD topics with professors and scholars from University of Cambridge, University of Essex and Rothamsted Research Ltd, UK. 

Talking about their projects, Swati Dahariya who will be working with Dr Anton Enright at the University of Cambridge says, “My work is focussed on molecular regulation of platelet production process. This is a great opportunity for me mostly because if one gets the chance to do laboratory related work internationally, it proves to be a big exposure in the research field. Especially, working in collaboration with the guidance of great scientists and experts.” 

Chalasani Danteswari, who will be working on biological nitrogen fixation research and soil bacterial diversity changes of cereals and pulse crops with Dr Andy Neal of Rothamsted Research Ltd, says, “In this project we are going to address the key issue in our Indian agriculture scenario. We are going to find the soil health changes with fertilizers  and our agriculture practices in India. I’m happy to work on this project as we are going to work closely with farmers in our country.” At the University of Essex, Mouboni Dutta, under the guidance of Dr Ulrike Bechtold, will carry out research on abiotic stress tolerance. Explaining the selection 

procedure, she says, “The Newton-Bhabha programme mainly aims at those research scholars who are in their mid-second or third year of their PhD and have qualified a national level test. For the selection, the applicants need to answer relevant questions related to their research, the applicability of their work in fighting societal problems and a concrete research proposal to be carried out in this duration of four months. Along with these, personally, having three publications helped me a lot.” 

“Finally, as a suggestion, I would like to say that having a well-planned research objective for the placement, usage of simple language for describing the importance of your research and chances of future collaboration between the home and the host institute will surely help the future applicants to get through this programme,” Mouboni sums up.