Join the Lab

The Biosensing & Biophysics Lab is always glad to hear from motivated students drawn to what we work on. There are no fixed openings to wait for. If the work here speaks to you, write.

You do not need to arrive as the finished article. Whether your strength is the wet lab, the computer, or the theory behind both, there is a path through this lab, and we will help you build whatever you are missing along the way. An experimentalist can learn to model, a modeller can learn the wet-lab skills, and most people here end up doing some of each.

To apply, email rahulag@iitg.ac.in with your CV and a short note on what interests you, be it a problem, a method, or a particular theme that caught your eye. That is enough to start a conversation.

Routes into the lab

PhD students

PhD admissions run through the institute on a fixed cycle, so the dates and the formal eligibility are set by the IIT Guwahati advertisement rather than by me, and that is the page to watch when a call is open. In broad terms you will need either a valid GATE score or a national fellowship, viz., CSIR-NET, UGC-NET, ICMR-JRF, DBT-JRF or INSPIRE. Either route needs the formal application, as holding a fellowship does not replace it.

The cycle governs the application, though, not the conversation. If you already hold one of these fellowships, or expect to soon, do write whenever you like and tell me what you would want to work on. I would far rather have that exchange some months before a call than in the week it closes, and I suspect you would too.

Postdoctoral fellows

If you are applying for an individual fellowship, or looking for a bridging position between the PhD and something permanent, I would be glad to act as mentor, and glad to build the proposal with you rather than simply sign it at the end. Do write at least six weeks before the deadline you are aiming at. That is roughly what it takes to turn a research interest into a proposal that survives a committee.

The three routes that make sense for this lab:

• ANRF N-PDF. Two years, Rs 80,000 per month plus HRA, with a research grant. You will need at least two publications, and you must be within five years of your viva and under 35 at the closing date, with the usual relaxations. Two limits here are mine rather than yours, viz., a mentor may supervise at most two N-PDF fellows at a time and may put forward at most two applications in a single call. If you are thinking of naming me, do write early, so that we can sort this out before you have written a word of the proposal.
• DBT-RA. For biotechnology and life sciences, tenable at institutions such as this one, and administered through RCB Faridabad. The call runs roughly once a year, so it is worth planning around rather than waiting on.
• DST WISE-PDF. For women scientists between 27 and 60, up to three years, at Rs 67,000 per month plus HRA and a research grant. The last call closed in February 2025 and DST has said the next will be announced in due course, so keep an eye on it.

Before writing, have a look at the Research page and tell me which theme you would want to build a proposal around. A proposal anchored to a particular problem here is a far easier and more enjoyable thing to write together than a general expression of interest.

JRF and project staff positions

From time to time the lab carries funded positions on sanctioned research projects, usually as Junior Research Fellow or Project Associate. These are institute appointments, so they come with their own eligibility criteria, a formal advertisement and a fixed application window, and they cannot be filled through an informal enquiry however keen either of us might be. Whenever such a position opens, it will appear on the News page and in the institute's advertisements. The next such position is a Junior Research Fellow on the DHR-supported project "High-Resolution Microfluidic Whole-Blood Viscometer for Point-of-Care Pre-Eclampsia Severity Stratification" (selected August 2026), in clinical collaboration with AIIMS Guwahati; it is expected to be advertised in the months after the project is sanctioned, and the formal advertisement will carry the eligibility and the dates.

Project and internship students

You are very welcome here, and several of the people on the People page arrived exactly this way, so please do not think of it as a side door.

Two honest notes before you write. The first is that the lab cannot offer a stipend for project and internship students, so you will need to arrange your own support, whether through your home institute, a summer fellowship scheme, or otherwise. I would rather say so plainly than leave you to find out late.

The second is about time, and it is a suggestion rather than a rule. There is no minimum stay. That said, learning to set up a CFD case properly, or to fabricate a device that does not leak, tends to take up the first six to eight weeks on its own, so the longer you can stay, the more of the work ends up being yours rather than mine. Around six months is where most people start producing something they can put their own name to. If you have less time than that, write anyway and we will find a piece of the problem that fits the window you have.

When you do write, send your CV, your current year or semester, and a line or two on which of the lab's problems draws you. Around three months of notice lets us line up a problem that suits both the lab's calendar and yours, though if you are already inside that window, write anyway and we will see what can be arranged.

Skills you will gain

These are skills the lab teaches. None is required to start.