Dr. Varghese was born and raised in India, traveling around the country frequently due to her father’s post in the military. She did primary and secondary school all over the country, although mainly in the southern state of Kerala. Afterward, she attended Mahatma Gandhi College, an institution that focussed minimally on research at the time of her attendance. However, she was able to conduct research more wholly at the National Chemical Laboratory of India, where she performed her Ph.D.
The National Chemical Laboratory, based in Pune, India, is a government research institute that investigates a wide array of chemical, physical, and biological sciences. Dr. Varghese studied both chemical engineering and polymer physics, investigating the thermodynamic properties of associating polymers. Her investigations gave her a thorough background on hydrogels, three-dimensional polymer chains that are often used in organ-on-chip models, the place where she eventually ended up applying her knowledge.
She next conducted her postdoc at Johns Hopkins at the Elisseeff Lab. The lab primarily studied tissue engineering, but Dr. Varghese worked with the PI, Dr. Elisseeff , to work on stem cell engineering and cartilage tissue engineering, a far cry from the work she did in polymer physics during her Ph.D. However, she says, “my thinking was influenced by it [Ph.D work], but directly, no I don’t use it.” She explains how her Ph.D work shaped her analyses and approach although it didn’t have direct applications to her current cell and tissue developmental work.
In 2008, Dr. Varghese got a Bio-Engineering faculty position at the University of California San Diego, where she spent 10 years continuing her work on bio-inspired materials and stem cell engineering. Her extensive work there framed how she conducts research and the research questions that she now develops at Duke University. Since she joined Duke Faculty in 2018, she has published numerous papers, served on various committees, worked as a MEDx Investigator, and worked as associate editor of Biomaterials Science, a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. She continues her work in various fields including developing smart biomaterials, extracellular matrix biology and engineered matrices, stem cell engineering, tissue regeneration, and organ-on-a-chip technologies.
Working under Dr. Shyni Varghese has been an incredible experience and I have gained invaluable insights about the way research is conducted and the degree of work that goes into maintaining the integrity of results and analysis. I’m looking forward to learning more from her and the rest of the lab during the remainder of the summer and on!
