I am Vasundhara Karthikeyan, a BS-MS graduate from IISER, Tirupati, specializing in biology. My research interests encompass epigenetic regulation, bioinformatics, and microbiology, with a special interest in plant stress memory and the use of omics technologies to explore phenotypic plasticity. Currently, I am working at Ashoka University, where I am engaged in projects that employ comparative genomics to tackle antimicrobial resistance.

I am enthusiastic about anything that feeds into the life sciences, and will look at how mutator E.coli strains perform against wild types under different treatment regimes of three non-overlapping antibiotics.

Apart from science, I enjoy swimming, learning new languages and having a musical jam with anyone who cares to join me. I also aim to become an educator and a professional performer of Carnatic music.

I joined this lab as a 4th year ASP student, pursuing a one-year capstone thesis as part of the curriculum at Ashoka University. My dissertation project was on mapping virulence and carbapenem resistance genes in clinical Klebsiella pneumoniae genomes across India. On a larger scale, I am interested in genetics, genomics, molecular evolution and anything and everything scientific. Beyond reading research, I love to read recipes and try my hand at various dishes including those that I discover during travel and culinary explorations.