I followed my passion and learnt skills on the way….

Cheshta Sharma

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Taking control of how you want to spend the rest 30-40 years of your working life and then lead a happy and successful retired life, is something that I would like to suggest to everyone, irrespective of your career stage. Although, one should start preparing for the career well ahead of time, but it is never too late to start when you realize it. Most commonly it is said that you should try to strike a work-life balance. However, in my opinion work is a part of your life and thus should be integrated like that. So, I go by the saying “Find your passion and make a living out of it so you don’t have to work a day in your life!”. I am passionate about science, love resolving the mystery of nature.

Following my passion, I began my academic career as an undergraduate interested in animal biology with a major in Zoology, where I volunteered to conduct research in a microbiology laboratory that worked on protozoa (ciliates). This research exposure contributed to my growing interest in pursuing a Master’s degree in Biotechnology, which provided me with in-depth knowledge and skills to perform research. After completion of this degree, I was actively engaged at various labs to gain research experience, learn molecular biology techniques, and build my research profile for application to a Ph.D. program. I learned experimental design and conducted rigorous studies resulting in a peer-reviewed manuscript as a co-author and a first-author book chapter. My research experiences fueled a strong desire to continue studies towards a doctoral degree. I was awarded a highly competitive fellowship by the Indian government to pursue my doctoral studies in Medical Microbiology at one of the reputed universities in India.

BLOG: Should I stay or should I go?

During my Graduate studies, I realized that the antimicrobial resistance is such a huge menace, and the world needs to know a lot more about this. I worked on various projects with one central theme of understanding the mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance. While doing so, I focused on conceptual learning of laboratory skills, literature review and research. I made sure to perform a thorough literature review and understand the gap in knowledge and based my hypothesis accordingly. I learnt to plan my experiments with great attention, be critical about my experimental findings, and made sure the results were reproducible. I documented my experiments with complete details and results so that it was easy for any newcomer to follow. Another important skill that I learnt during my Graduate school was communication. I was once told by my mentor that “Nobody cares if you are doing are a great science, until you are able to communicate to the outside world in a language they can understand.” This stayed with me. I made sure to participate and present my research findings in various national and international conferences. I also authored 20+ publications in peer-reviewed high impact scientific journals. As Scientists, it is our incumbent duty to let the taxpayer know what we are doing with their hard-earned money behind those doors. Not just that, but by communicating we will be doing a favor to the humanity by bursting all the fake news that we all saw revolving around during the COVID pandemic. This opened an opportunity for me to come to the USA as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and continue following my passion for science.