An interview with Indulekha M S, Community Manager of the Indian Society of Developmental Biologists

In this interview, we caught up with Indulekha M S, who joined the Indian Society of Developmental Biologists (InSDB) as their Community Manager at the end of 2023.

What is your background and what made you decide to join the InSDB as their Community Manager?

I did an integrated bachelor’s and master’s of science from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Trivandrum, Kerala. I majored in biology and was working in a drosophila genetics lab at the time. Initially, like most of my peers, I wanted to go ahead with a graduate program. But somewhere in the five years of my time at IISE, I got interested in the communications side of science. I had a few stints with a couple of scicomm groups- I worked as an audio editor, produced video interviews, and so on. After graduation, I wanted to do this full-time, and that was when I came across the advert for the community manager position for InSDB. The job description seemed perfect for me, and I applied right away. That’s how I got in.

What does the role of InSDB’s Community Manager entail?

My role is to initiate new activities at InSDB and execute them. I engage with the members and produce stories, interviews, and other forms of content. I also take up new publications in developmental biology and publish lay summaries. Along with this, I manage the InSDB website and social media handles and keep an active online presence. I also coordinate and help organize the InSDB meetings. There’s also a small administrative side to the role: I help take care of the day-to-day functioning of the society. We want to initiate outreach activities that popularize developmental biology, and recently, as a part of this, I visited a few institutes and interacted with the students and faculty there to increase the visibility of InSDB.

Can you give an introduction about the InSDB to the Node readers?

InSDB is the national society that represents researchers in the area of developmental biology field in India. It was formed in the 1970s, and currently, we have members across all career stages, from undergrads to faculties. The society hosts its flagship meeting every two years, and researchers come together and present their work. We had our 2024 meeting in February this year, and the next meeting will be held in 2026. Along with that, we are now planning for smaller, focused meetings and more outreach initiatives. We also have an active website where you can access a variety of resources. When someone becomes a member of InSDB, you get access to the network of developmental biologists and can also avail reduced registration fees for meetings and workshops we organize.

There’s a recent revamp of InSDB’s website. What are the new features and how can researchers make use of the resources on the website?

The new website is a platform made for members to connect with each other and access resources. The site was designed keeping this in mind. One of the key features of the site is that once you become a member, you can ping other members directly from the website. There’s also the forum– a place where you can discuss relevant topics. The forum is your place if you want to discuss a newly published paper or get tips on something. We also publish events – meetings/workshops/journal clubs – and we advertise opportunities in devbio-related fields. The website also has a lot of teaching and learning resources that one can use. We try to add more resources frequently and all the things we curate are to help researchers/students in different ways.

Our audience can also put up events that they are organizing or that they know of. They can also feature Ph.D, postdoc, or internship openings in their labs. We also invite resource submissions that others can make use of.

Are there ways for researchers to contribute to InSDB?

Yes, of course! In fact, we want more people to contribute to InSDB. We welcome articles and perspectives from our readers. Our community blog has some articles written by graduate students. If anyone out there is interested in contributing, they can send a mail to info@insdb.in. It is our members who make the community, so if there is an idea for a new initiative that you would like to see InSDB implement, we are all ears for it.

Any exciting plans/ upcoming projects you’re doing for InSDB?

Yes! We want to do many things at InSDB, but first, we want to connect better with the members and then take InSDB and developmental biology to the more general audience. We have started this by showcasing our members’ stories on the website. You can find these interviews here. As I mentioned before, we want to initiate outreach activities for the non-specialist audience. We are building this up right now. We had our first outreach event of the year at the BLiSc campus in Bangalore, where we had a whole exhibition displayed for high school students. It was a fun event and there’ll be more such events in the future!

Finally, what do you like to do in your free time?

I am new to the city that I currently live in – Bangalore. My weekends are spent roaming around the city and indulging in the local cuisine. If not for that, I am a homebody and spend most of my time reading or trying to find new hobbies.

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