Her Story
About Lekha
I did my undergrad back in India in electronics and communication, with a bit of signal processing. Right after that, while applying for my master's in the US, I was also working as an RA in J&T UK, which is a prestigious university back in India. I was working there, and that's when I realized I really love research. I worked there for almost a year as a research assistant, and then I came to ASU for my master's. That's when I enrolled for Computer and Electrical Engineering. After that, I joined Barrow, where I was given a lot of clinical training, including coordinator orientation for research excellence training and CT training, which is quite important when working on real human subjects. Now I work on epilepsy patients for research, looking at single neuron-level recordings, which is quite rare because we have very limited recording sites in the entire world. My typical day involves running behavioral tasks on patients and analyzing them, building pipelines for clinical systems, analyzing data, conducting literature surveys, and coding on the signals.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lekha
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is doing something that you love would really make you shine, instead of doing something that would make you rich. I think that's what has guided me in my career choices.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I feel like neuroscience is something people think is really science-related, but I feel it's interdisciplinary, and I think it's for anyone and everyone, because there's so much to explore. I see that women are underrepresented in this field, so it would be great to see more young women coming into this field. Not just doctors, but engineers too.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now, I'm in a research-heavy field, so obviously the funding is a bit iffy right now. I've heard many labs have funding cuts and stuff, so I think that's the biggest challenge in research right now. But I think I do see it's getting hopeful. So, we'll see how it goes.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think staying loyal to yourself in the work you do and in your personal relationships is most important. And then, doing something that you really love would make you happy, I feel.
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