Driven by scientific curiosity, Pooja strives to utilize her academic and advocacy skills to enhance societal wellbeing while disentangling the nuances of cultural complexity.

An internationally accomplished Stem Cell Scientist and Developmental Biologist, Pooja has worked across multiple disciplines in scientifically diverse and culturally rich environments in India, Germany, Hungary and England where she attained her PhD. in Biological Sciences (University of Southampton) and was awarded the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Fellowship.

Since concluding her postdoctoral research in the University of Hawaiʻi (USA) in 2022, she has explored alternative careers and volunteered for social causes including environmental sustainability at the Global Crisis Response (India) as an Outreach Coordinator and Research Associate; menstrual poverty and equity at The Pad Project (U.S.A) as a Public Health Ambassador; a Founding Member of a virtual peer-support group called Therapy Thursday (U.S.A) and research culture, diplomacy and open science at the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) as an Editorial Board Member.

Since her collaboration with the MCAA, she has Guest Edited the December 2022 Special Issue Newsletter focussing on ‘Mental Health in Academia’ and Career Development, published interviews on the MCAA Blog and contributed to the 2023 Irradium Magazine interviews exploring benefits and challenges of Doctoral Mobility under the MSCA and Erasmus+ programmes.

Pooja aspires to combine her scientific vigour and public outreach skills with a strong quest to attain menstrual equity, social wellbeing, and normalising mental and cultural complexity, for all.