PhD Admissions in Biology January 2024
IMPORTANT UPDATE
All students who applied for Ph.D. in Biology need to fill out a second departmental form. The link to the form has already been emailed to all applicants. Anyone who has not received the said email must contact biologyapplications@acads.iiserpune.ac.in immediately.
The last date for submitting the form is 15-Nov-2023.
APPLICATION CALL
IISER Pune hosts a diverse group of researchers working in various areas. Research in Biology at IISER currently encompasses both theoretical and experimental approaches. Fields of research open to application in this round of PhD selections are as follows:
Ecology and Evolution
For students interested in Ecology and Evolution. This includes Theoretical and Empirical aspects of Ecology (Agricultural, Chemical, Molecular, Plant, Physiological, Microbial), Evolution (Life-History) and Biodiversity (Taxonomic, Functional and Phylogenetic).
Faculty listing:
- Deepak Barua
- Ramana Athreya
- Sagar Pandit
- Sutirth Dey
Molecular/Cell Biology/Biochemistry
For students interested in molecular biology, cell biology, cellular biophysics, developmental biology, microbiology, immunology, epigenetics, chromosome biology, conformational dynamics of proteins, metabolomics and cancer biology.
Faculty listing:
- Amrita Hazra
- Chaitanya Athale
- Kundan Sengupta
- Mayurika Lahiri
- Nagaraj Balasubramanian
- Sudha Rajamani
- Jeetender Chugh
Plant Sciences
For students interested in Plant Cell and Developmental Biology, Plant Biotechnology, Agricultural Biotechnology, Plant Physiology, Plant Ecology, and Plant Chemical Ecology
Faculty listing:
- Deepak Barua
- Sagar Pandit
Theoretical and Computational Biology
For students interested in any branch of theoretical biology including theoretical neuroscience, evolution, bioinformatics and computational cell biology.
Faculty listing:
- Chaitanya Athale
- Collins Assisi
- Pranay Goel
- Suhita Nadkarni
IMPORTANT
- There will not be any rotations. Students will directly join the labs of their choice.
- Note that the faculty members whose names are listed here are the ones who will be accepting students in this round of PhD admissions. However, this list is expected to undergo some revision after lab allocations of Aug intake PhD students is complete. Students should factor this possibility while thinking about labs of their interest from this list of names provided. A final updated list of available faculty will be shared with students selected for the final round of interviews.
Application Criteria
All candidates who fulfil criteria A1 and any one of the criteria mentioned in A2, are eligible to apply. Based on these applications, IISER Pune will create the list of students to be invited for online interviews.
Criteria A1. Masters; (or B.E., B.Tech., M.Tech, MBBS) degree holders in any branch of science including physics, chemistry, mathematics, biological sciences, ecology and environmental sciences, biodiversity, psychology or equivalent. Applicants must have a minimum of 60% marks in aggregate (overall percentage and not just in majoring subject) or CGPA of 6/10 in the general category or minimum 55% marks in aggregate (overall percentage and not just in majoring subject) or equivalent CGPA of 5.5 in the SC/ST or PwD category. Students whose final results in Masters or equivalent are yet to be declared can also apply. However, if selected, the offer for these students will be provisional, subject to their fulfilling the above criteria.
Criteria A2. Applicants must have any one of the following qualification.
- Qualified a National Eligibility exam that provides a 5-year Ph.D. fellowship such as CSIR–JRF / UGC–JRF / DBT–JRF–A/ ICMR–JRF / DBT–BINC–JRF / Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship. The fellowships must be valid until 31-January-2024.
- Qualified JEST (rank holder up to 500) or GPAT (rank holder up to 500) or NBHM in last two years.
- INSPIRE-Ph.D. fellowship (should be in possession of provisional selection letter at the time of Interview).
- IISER BS-MS dual degree students with CGPA ≥ 8.0 Rank =200 in GATE exams (GATE Life Sciences, GATE Chemistry, GATE Eco-Evo, GATE Biotechnology, GATE Mathematics). The GATE score must be valid until 31-January-2024.
- Qualified JGEBILLS (IISER Pune will shortlist based on the ranks of the students).
Shortlisting and Interview Process
Meeting the above-mentioned criteria merely makes the candidate eligible for application. IISER Pune reserves the right to use other / more stringent criteria for the purpose of shortlisting for interviews. Specifically, the scores obtained in the “Research Design” and “Design an experiment” can be used for the purpose of shortlisting for interviews. Only shortlisted candidates will be informed. Therefore, all candidates are requested to check this page regularly for updates. The referees of the shortlisted candidates alone shall be contacted for the reference letters.
Queries: In case of queries, please email biologyapplications@acads.iiserpune.ac.in