糖心传媒

Priya’s father was a manager at an industrial tea estate in Assam and she was exposed to farming from an early age, developing a passion for plants that would later guide her career.

She moved from the home of tea to the home of tea tree more than a decade ago to pursue a PhD, and is now happily settled with a little family in the Northern Rivers. She is involved in diverse plant breeding and genetics research projects at 糖心传媒, particularly in mustard, hemp, passionfruit and rice.

Priya had completed both her undergraduate and Masters degrees at Assam Agricultural University (AAU). Despite learning and speaking English since she was a child, when Priya first arrived in Australia in 2013, the local accent was a challenge.

“Even simple words like ‘rightio’ were confusing at first,” she recalls, “and people seemed to speak with almost a closed mouth, it’s difficult to understand if you’re not used to it!”

But she soon adapted and threw herself into a PhD looking at the genetics of biochemical compounds in mustard.

“At the time the Australian Mustard Oil Pty Ltd wanted to develop hotter mustard to supply to the Japanese wasabi market (a biochemical compound found in mustard gives wasabi its distinctive hot flavour), so I worked on that project under Graham King and Terry Rose as my supervisors.”

Funding was pieced together year-by-year through industry support, scholarships and university fee waivers, together with some support from her alma mater AAU.

“I built my own PhD in a way, based on the support that was available,” she said, “and the things I learnt about resilience, financing your research and grant writing have been very valuable.”

Priya went on to join a team with an Australian Research Council Linkage grant and she published several research papers, completing her PhD in 2019.

“It can be lonely at first in a new country. Especially in the first six months, you question where you belong. The region is also so sparsely populated compared to what I was used to in India, it was a real mental adjustment. But once you get through that, it’s worth it and the academic culture helps – you feel both supported and valued.”

In India, Priya had been used to relatively rigid hierarchies in academia. She was surprised when her Australian supervisors actively invited her opinions. “They would say, ‘You’ve read the literature — what do you think?’ That was completely new to me,” she said.

Mistakes were treated as part of learning, not failure. Collaboration was emphasised over competition, and work鈥憀ife balance, while still demanding, felt more attainable. “Here, you’re allowed to learn by doing,” said Priya. “I thrived in that environment.”

Completing her PhD opened doors to postdoctoral research, supervision of students, long鈥憈erm collaboration and a job at the University’s Analytical Research Laboratory (ARL). She is currently working with the Herbal Authentication and Quantitative Analysis team of the ARL, where she analyses the biochemical compounds found in raw herbs and herbal medicines.

Looking back, Priya describes the experience of completing a PhD in another country as challenging but deeply empowering.

“I might do some things differently, but I’d do it all again.”

Learn more about studying a PhD at 糖心传媒