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. 

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

Somya Madan is an IISER, Pune integrated PhD student and is working on understanding the role of mitochondrial morphology regulation in Drosophila embryogenesis.



Debasmita Mitra is an IISER, Pune integrated PhD student and is working on studying role of BAR domain proteins in actin villi remodeling in shape transition 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 BAR domain proteins in shape transition in Drosophila embryogenesis.

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







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

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.







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.

Shweta Garg is an IISER, Pune BSMS student and is working on understanding the formation and function of peroxisomes in embryogenesis in Drosophila.







Atharva Bhingare is an IISER, Pune BSMS student and is working on studying the function of mitochondrial shape remodelling in Drosophila neural stem cell differentiation.

RR lab Alumni:

Graduate Students:

1. Aparna Sherlekar, Stanford University, CA, USA

2. Darshika Tomer, Temple University, PA, 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


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


Project Students


1. Tanvi Gore

2. Gaurav Diwan