21 March 2025 – EMBO Fellow Amrita Singh is the first in her family to pursue a PhD abroad and has clear advice to other Indian students considering a career in the life sciences: start planning now.
“Even if you’re in a lesser-known institute, with the internet you can always reach out to learn more,” she says. “The other advice would be to start applying for fellowships and grants early on because that also helps a lot.”
After a Master’s degree from the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, Singh moved to Münster in Germany for her PhD and is now in Austria at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) in Klosterneuburg.
“Studying neural tube development at ISTA was a very good fit for me because most of the mechanical aspects are still largely unexplored. Most of our understanding of this process comes from studying signalling pathways and morphogen gradients in this context,” she says. “This gave me a platform to build on my existing knowledge and experience from the mechanical and the tissue morphogenetic side and apply it to a relatively underexplored area.”
Singh was initially awarded an IST fellowship and then applied for the EMBO Fellowship.
“When the EMBO Fellowship Committee approves your project it is a very big confidence boost,” Singh says. “When I was applying, I read the EMBO policies and that impressed me a lot. For female researchers, especially at the early career stage, this funding is flexible and supports the idea of having both a family and a career together.”
Singh also attended the EMBO Self-Leadership Workshop. “It was excellent. I could meet EMBO Fellows at the same career stage, and for my next career step of having a lab, the leadership qualities are very important,” Singh says. “To become a leader, you have to understand yourself before you understand other people.”
Singh intends to return to India and ideally run her own lab. “My idea was always to learn and go back,” she says.
“I want to give a chance to students in lesser-known institutes to get the same exposure to international science. I strongly believe the students in these institutes are also extremely capable and talented, and it’s just a matter of giving exposure to them.”
