Sumitra Debina Mitra PhD

Dr. Sumitra Debina Mitra, Ph.D. first-ever exposure to wet lab work at the age of 17, on the efficacy of antifungal components in wall paint, was a small undergraduate project for an inter-college competition. Weirdly, Sumitra doesn’t remember if we won but Sumitra remembers falling in love with the process of planning and executing experiments and the eagerness to go into the lab every day. Now, as a postdoctoral fellow at Alan Hauser’s lab, the world of microbiology still entices me, and Sumitra enjoys every moment of it.

Sumitra completed BSc (Hons) and MSc degrees at the University of Mumbai. During Sumitra master’s, Sumitra was awarded the Indian Academy of Sciences Summer Research Fellowship to study the phosphate utilization pathway in yeast at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. After Sumitra master’s, Sumitra worked for a year at the Hinduja hospital laboratory where Sumitra published the first paper on the prevalence of carbapenemases in the local population. At this point, Sumitra decided to do a Ph.D. and moved to Singapore to join Kimberly Kline’s lab at Nanyang Technological University. We worked on how Sortase A, a membrane enzyme and important virulence factor, localizes to specific domains within Enterococcus faecalis.

Once again, knowing that change every now and then is important for growth, Sumitra moved life to the other side of the globe and experienced Sumitra's first winter this January. Sumitra joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Northwestern University at the beginning of 2019 and now works on the type 3 secretion system that plays a key role in the pathogenesis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Sumitra's long-term career goal is to enter the scientific publishing field and Sumitra wants to spend Sumitra time at NU carving Sumitra's niche in the relatively large field of bacterial virulence factors while building Sumitra network within the scientific community. Being a part of the Chicago Women in STEM initiative, Sumitra believes, allows me to do both with the added advantage of engaging with amazing female scientists from diverse backgrounds.