Dr. Surat graduated with a Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Mechanobiology from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai, India) in 2016.
Inside the body, a cell does not exist in isolation. It is surrounded by cells and tissues which push and pull it as they undergo movements and shape changes during development. What is the effect of such mechanical pushing and pulling by neighbors, and do these mechanical constraints play a role in its behavior? These are some of the questions Surat investigated during her Ph.D.
Prior to her Ph.D., Dr. Surat studied for a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Zoology, during which she was the recipient of an Indian Academy of Sciences Summer Fellowship. As a part of this fellowship, she investigated the effect of an AIDS viral protein on the morphology and development of neurons. She was also selected to be a Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) summer fellow. Her project involved investigating the effect of simulating different migration patterns on the population dynamics.
Following her Ph.D., Surat decided a career in scientific writing was for her. She completed and passed the ‘Copy-editing 2’ course offered by the Society of Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP, UK). The course teaches and tests the technicalities of copy-editing a variety of texts, from public information to academic books. She also took and passed ‘Writing in the Sciences’, a course in science writing offered by Stanford University (USA).
She is now a freelance science writer for several scientific websites around the world, having written popular science news and feature articles for several science magazines and blogs, including News-Medical. Her articles cover research news including latest scientific breakthroughs in technology and medicine, as well as feature articles on a wide range of topics, such as medical ethics, data manipulation, pseudoscience and superstition, education, and human evolution. She is passionate about science communication and writes articles covering all areas of the life sciences.
Dr. Surat also edits, re-writes, and proofreads articles to improve the clarity, logic, flow, and impact of manuscripts prior to publication. These manuscripts cover a wide array of subjects in life sciences, including cell biology, developmental biology, stem cell biology, radiology, surgery, oncology, plant biology, gynecology, alternate medicine, psychology among others.