I accepted a faculty position at IISc just recently and will join in June this year 2026. The process was long and it included a lot of self-doubt along the way. But maybe that post is for another time. More specifically, this is also an entry to the blog post of the group that ranges from academic stuffs, research ideas that might have come, papers that got accepted for example and the thoughts that went in writing that paper, for instance.

The blog is going to be document the steps of building an initial lab and the pitfalls that I might face over time during my transition from EU to India. Almost everyone that I have talked to have indicated that I could be in for a huge culture shock in terms of academia. I am unsure what this means, but let’s see. I will try to document this as I go on; in addition this blog would be about papers, research ideas, some musings from people in the lab.

Application process in India

The whole application process from submitting to getting a position in India was long, and mentally exhausting, and is definitely filled with uncertainty. Beginning of year 2025 is when I finally decided to move back to India, and applied for positions around Jan 2025. Today is 19th March, so a year along the line now.

Overall, I applied to at least 8 different places in India, which included one IISER, three IITs, two TIFRs, one CSIR lab, and IISc. I formally gave a total of four interviews (50 % of my application pool), that included IISc, and had another offer for a faculty position from among these.

It took a lot of preparation along the way. I researched a lot of stuff on the interviews, but of course, none of them were on Indian academia, but mostly on american universities. But all of these resources did help, which I am linking below.

1. On faculty position in US in ecology and evolution
2. Overll in US