People

Richa Rikhy

I did a Bachelor’s in Lifesciences and Biochemistry from St. Xavier’s College Mumbai, India. I did a Master’s in Science in M.S. University Baroda, India and my PhD in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India. I worked on the mechanisms involved in synaptic vesicle recycling with K.S. Krishnan. I did a post-doc with Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz at Bethesda, NIH, USA. I worked on elucidating the role of membrane trafficking in plasma membrane polarity and compartmentalization in the Drosophila embryo. At IISER, Pune, our group is interested in questions of morphogenesis and differentiation during organism development. I am currently a Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance Senior Fellow. I am also an academic editor at the Journal of Cell Science.

ORCID 0000-0002-4262-0238

This link introduces Richa as an editor in the Journal of Cell Science. Here is a link for an interview with the Journal of Cell Science too!

Richa Rikhy got awarded the Anne Mclaren Award for Outstanding Women in Developmental Biology 2025 from the International Society for Differentiation.

This article by Aashima Dogra delves more into my life so far in science.

Sanjana S is an IISER, Pune PhD student and is working on studying role of BAR domain protein Centaurin b1A in membrane remodelling in Drosophila embryogenesis.

Rahul Verma is an IISER, Pune PhD student and is working on understanding the role of mitochondrial fusion in neural stem cell differentiation in Drosophila.

Shashwat Goswami is an IISER, Pune PhD student and is working on studying role of GRAF domains in endocytosis and actomyosin remodelling in Drosophila embryogenesis.

Aparna K is an IISER, Pune Integrated PhD student and is working on studying role of actin remodelling proteins in villi remodelling in Drosophila embryogenesis.

Harsh Mittal is an IISER, Pune integrated PhD student and is working on understanding the role of mitochondrial activity in regulating morphogenetic events in embryogenesis in Drosophila.

Rishikesh Pradhan is a project student and is working on understanding the changes in lipids in various mutants in embryos

Anirban Roy Choudhury is an IISER, Pune PhD student and is working on understanding the role of mitochondrial shape in regulating ER mitochondria organization and morphogenesis in Drosophila embryogenesis.

Ritika Dewra is an iPhD student in the lab and she is working on the role of electron transport chain activity and mitohcondrial fusion in differentiation in Drosophila neural stem cells.

Jayashree Mahajan is an Masters student in the lab, and she is working on the role of peroxisomes in morphogenesis in the early Drosophila embryo.

Hima S is a BSMS student in IISER Pune pursing her Masters thesis on the role of Centaurin b1A domains in morphogenesis in Drosophila embryogenesis.

Advika Dhanorkar is a Masters student in the lab and she is working on the role of mitochondrial activity proteins in gastrulation in Drosophila embryogenesis.

RR lab Alumni:

Graduate Students:

1. Aparna Sherlekar, Stanford University, CA, USA

2. Darshika Tomer, Washington University, Missouri, USA

3. Sayali Chowdhary, Sloan Kettering, NY, USA

4. Sameer Thukral, Riken Center, Kobe, Japan

5. Bipasha Dey, Riken Center, Kobe, Japan

6. Dnyanesh Dubal, MRC, Cambridge, UK

7. Swati Sharma, University of Manchester, UK

8. Bhavin Uttekar, Bristol University, UK

9. Debasmita Mitra, TIFR, Mumbai, India

10. Somya Madan

Bachelors and Masters thesis project students:

1. Ankush Auradkar

2. Anvita Karara

3. Rukmini Gurjalwar

4. Pooja Naik

5. Devashree Sambre

6. Ramya Balaji

7. Prachi Richa

8. Srija Bhagavatula

9. Rohan Chippalkatti

10. Tirthasree Das

11. Abhijeet Petkar

12. Anjana Madhusoodhanan

13. Vishnu MS

14. Prachiti Moghe

15. Gayatri Mundhe

16. Adikrishna K

17. Celena Cherian

18. Amruta Swaminathan

19. Divya S

20. Bhavesh Ohal

21. Shweta Garg

22. Atharva Bhingare

23. Mridusmita Das

Project Students

1. Tanvi Gore

2. Gaurav Diwan

3. Radhika Koranne

4. Sakshi Phalke

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