CDS Graduate Student Speaker Shruthi Bandyadka

A Journey Beyond the Thesis: A CDS Graduate Reflects on the Hidden Stories of Scientific Discovery and Community

Shruthi Bandyadka, the 2025 CDS Graduate Student Speaker, shared a heartfelt reflection on the hidden stories behind scientific discovery, emphasizing collaboration, resilience, and community as essential pillars of her PhD journey at Boston University.

Esteemed professor and associate provost Dr. Azer Bestavros, my advisor and Professor of Biology Dr. Kimberly McCall, Director of the program in bioinformatics Dr. Thomas Tullius, distinguished speaker Marjorie Hsu, friends, and proud families of my fellow graduates, good morning and congratulations!

When I was asked to share my experience, I wondered if I had anything left to say that I hadn’t already said in my dissertation. A scientific PhD thesis is a treatise on a narrow, highly specialized subject.

Typically, it includes an overarching problem statement, the rationale and motivation behind the pursuit of said problem, detailed descriptions of the experiments carried out, the findings from this dogged pursuit, and some perspectives on the significance of the findings.

What this seemingly comprehensive document doesn’t capture are the countless conversations I’ve had with advisors and peers in the program who come from diverse cultural and scientific backgrounds, working on wide-ranging topics such as microbial evolution, the role of metabolism in cancer, and even the genetics of healthy supercentenarians.

The thesis doesn’t record the fact that an exciting idea for an experiment came to me during a game of badminton with a fellow graduate student as we shuttled both the birdie and the frustrations of unsuccessful experiments across the net.

My research on understanding how immune cells respond to distress was made possible by a key piece of code I adapted from an economist in Sweden working on determining crime patterns in Stockholm. This became but a single line of citation in my thesis-easy to miss.

A nifty trick for keeping cells from floating away under the microscope while I imaged them for hours – finessed by a senior graduate student and not found in any published protocol – will be quietly passed on to the next crop of graduate students. The trick is to put a paper towel at the bottom of the petri dish. There is no space in the dissertation for all the stories of yore recounted over lunch by a senior scientist in the lab, of how the act of doing science and the art of being a scientist have evolved over the decades.

Readers of my dissertation will also not know that as a data scientist, I learned to do lab work during the second year of my PhD, from a senior graduate student in the third trimester of her pregnancy, who had an hour-long commute to lab, during the first few months of a global pandemic, all the while trying to wrap up her own thesis research.

I devoted a measly 2 sentences in my dissertation to acknowledge my patient and supportive partner who picked up additional chores and gave me sage advice on demand.

A life in scientific research may be an arduous personal journey, requiring immense patience and persistence from the traveler, but it may never be accomplished by the traveler alone. It is the numerous supporting roles played by fellow travelers, many of whom are graduating with me today, who make it all worthwhile. I can confidently say that at Boston University, the scientifically intrepid will always be in good company.