PROMOTING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BETWEEN INDIA AND THE U.S.

WINStep Mentorship Program 2020-2021

 

The WINStep Forward Mentorship Program has a multifaceted vision—

  1. Providing guidance to current college scholars (mentees) regarding the various aspects of educational, professional, and personal life in the U.S., including details on how to apply to graduate school, for internship opportunities, or for the industry.
  2. Enabling Khorana alumni to be involved in giving back to the program they gained so much from by becoming mentors, as well as vetted Ph.D. students to share their knowledge and help guide current college students in figuring out their paths

 

WINStep matches scholars with mentors based on similar interests and research fields. The mentees can directly contact the mentors via email or organize meetings to receive guidance on how to move forward, resolve their issues and seek support. WINStep also provides support to the mentors by answering their questions regarding mentoring, resolving conflicts, and encouraging the mentor-mentee relationships to be vigorous, inspirational, and supportive.

 

Meet our Alumni Mentors!

Rachita K. Kumar

Rachita is a Khorana Scholar from the 2018 cohort, who interned at the Kornberg Lab at Stanford University. Following her graduation from SASTRA University with a B. Tech Bioinformatics, she returned to the Kornberg Lab and continued her work from the previous summer.

She is an incoming graduate student at ETH Zürich and will pursue a Master’s in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. She is currently a post-baccalaureate fellow at the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC-DSAI) at IIT Madras.

 

 

 

 


Ranjini Bhattacharya

“I am a final year BSc. (Research) Biotechnology student at Shiv Nadar University and an incoming PhD student in the Integrated Mathematical Oncology Department at the University of South Florida. In 2019, I interned with Dr. David Basanta and Dr. Andriy Marusyk at Moffitt Cancer and learnt the application of ‘Evolutionary Game Theory’ to cancer dynamics. Currently, I am pursuing my final year thesis under Dr. Mohit Kumar Jolly, IISC Bangalore. My interests lie at the intersection of biology, physics, and mathematics. I am driven by the vision of providing a more formal mathematical framework to the cancer complexity so as to develop therapeutic interventions. In addition to my scientific interests, I am also the Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Project Encephalon (always up for learning something new!) and an independent animal rescuer.”

 

 

 

 


Indranil Ghosh

Indranil is a PhD student in the department of chemistry at the University of Chicago, USA where he looks at dynamics of condensed phase systems using ultrafast optical spectroscopy. He was a 2019 Bose scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA where his work was about understanding the bulk structure of an antifungal drug with the help of solid-state NMR spectroscopy. Indranil completed his master’s degree from NISER, India. Outside of work, he likes to devote time to social and environmental causes. He also loves cooking and classical music. He’s always open to talk about science or anything else. Email: indranilg@uchicago.edu

 

 

 

 


Callie Mataczynski

“My name is Callie Mataczynski and I majored in Biomedical Engineering with a global health certificate and pre-med track. I began my abroad interests in 2016 when I studied abroad in China. I furthered my abroad experience the next year when I researched Tuberculosis in India through the Bose/Khorana program. Ever since then I have taken the opportunity to learn, grow, and strive to be an advocate for world change. I hope to continue my path in global health and engineering. I am excited to be a part the mentorship program and always look forward to when I can connect with other scholars!”

 

 

 

 


Sukriti Mishra

“Hi! This is Sukriti Mishra. I have done my Masters in Chemistry from Miranda House, University of Delhi. I have been a S.N. BOSE Scholar in 2019 at HC Brown Centre for Borane Chemistry at Purdue University. I have worked on boranes and aminoboranes. In general, my research interest is Synthetic Organic Chemistry and would love to discuss on the topic with Chemistry enthusiasts. Apart from academics I love to dance and write poetry. My email-id is sukritimishra187@gmail.com. ”

 

 

 


Zeba Ahmad

“Hi, I’m Zeba, an incoming masters student at Saarland University in Germany. I completed my bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University. My interest in the application of AI for solving real-life problems, which lied along the tangent to my bachelor’s, led me to learn about AI (and the corresponding buzzwords) in my spare time. To complement this learning, I interned at IIT Delhi and as a 2019 Khorana Scholar at Rice University, USA. Currently, I am looking forward to beginning my journey as an MSc student in Visual Computing!

And to the undergrads reading this— Don’t worry, you got this!”

 

 

 

 


Milind Srivastava

 

Milind is a 2019 Bose scholar who interned at Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently a PhD student at CMU, working on network security. He’s an avid aviation and F1 enthusiast and likes cooking in his spare time.

 

 

 

 

 


Teena Bajaj

 

This is Teena Bajaj. I am an international graduate student in a comparative biochemistry program at UC Berkeley. I have been a Khorana scholar in 2016. I would be happy to share my knowledge and experience with other fellows interested in similar research fields. My email id is bajajtiya@berkeley.edu.

 

 

 


Priyanga Ganesan

 

Priyanga Ganesan is a Ph.D student in Mathematics at Texas A&M University. She completed a five-year Integrated Master’s program in Mathematics at the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) in India. Her doctoral research focuses on applications of operator algebras in quantum information theory. Upon completing her Ph.D, she aspires to become a Mathematics Professor and help promote diversity and inclusiveness in the scientific community. Ms. Ganesan is passionate about mentoring and science outreach. She currently serves as the President of the Association for Women in Mathematics Graduate Student Chapter and as Senior Director for the Indian Graduate Students Association at Texas A&M.

 

 


Amartya Pradhan

 

Amartya is a Junior Research Scholar in Vidita Vaidya Laboratory at the Tata Insitute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, and has been a Khorana Scholar in 2019. He is also serving as the Vice President of Project Encephalon. Amartya studies the circuits underlying anxiety and depression, and possible therapeutic interventions of hallucinogens. Outside of lab chores, he enjoys dancing, hiking, traveling, exploring cuisines, and volunteering for social causes.

 

 

 

 

 


Diya Binoy Joseph

I was a 2012 Khorana Scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I received my B.Tech in Biotechnology from NIT-Calicut and later moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for my PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology. In 2019,  I moved to Dallas, Texas for my postdoctoral training at the UT Southwestern Medical Center.

 

 

 

Board Members

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