I grew up in Ahmedabad, India. After completing undergraduate and MSc degrees in Delhi and Mumbai, I moved to the U.S. for a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. My PhD thesis in Michael Glotzer's lab focused on how metazoan cells designate a single and correctly positioned plane of cell division. My postdoctoral work was in Michael Way’s lab at the Francis Crick Institute where I investigated a phosphotyrosine signalling network hijacked by the poxvirus Vaccinia to control the host actin cytoskeleton. Here, I became interested in the poorly understood roles of tyrosine phosphatases in cell biology and signalling. I received a Wellcome Trust Career Development Award to start a research group on this theme at King’s College London.