Gauri grew up in India and moved to the UK at the age of 15. Intrigued and inspired by Gregor Mendel’s experiments in secondary school, she decided to pursue Genetics as an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge and a masters student at UCL.

Her research interests prior to her PhD were in the genetics and molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative disorders, prompting her to gain research experience in molecular neuroscience using Drosophila and cell lines. She started her PhD with Prof Michael Duchen and Prof Gyorgy Szabadkai as a mitochondrial novice, keen to move beyond GWAS and sequencing and onto functional cellular biology and translational research. During her PhD, she investigated the role of mitochondrial calcium handling proteins in cell death and disease using a range of techniques including fluorescence imaging, respirometry and molecular biology.

Her postdoctoral research has continued from this to look at mitochondrial-ER crosstalk, and the importance of calcium shuttling between intracellular stores in downstream metabolic phenotypes. Outside of science, Gauri keeps herself busy learning to cook, crochet and training her dog.