Sharada Prasanna Mohanty’s Post

Just defended my PhD at EPFL — and looking back, it’s been a wild, beautiful ride. While PhD horror stories often go viral for their drama… the truly life-changing PhD journeys rarely get the spotlight. A great PhD experience goes something like this: ➤ An advisor introduces you to research and teaches you the etiquette of doing meaningful work. ➤ Encourages — and fundamentally supports — your curiosity-driven exploration ➤ Leads from the front, and helps you scale your research ambitions. ➤ Teaches you how to teach others how to do research. ➤ Supports you as you navigate your dual ambitions — as a researcher and an entrepreneur. ➤ Hand-holds you through building a research startup that goes on to engage hundreds of thousands of people. ➤ Reminds you (at just the right time!) to also submit and defend your PhD thesis amidst all the entrepreneurial chaos. ➤ Then quietly steps back, congratulates you… and lets you take all the credit. That has been my experience as a PhD student with Marcel Salathé as a PhD advisor🙏 It’s been an incredible, high-speed roller coaster of a ride — one that has deeply shaped the way I think, work, and dream. I’m profoundly grateful to have had a mentor who not only guided my research but also helped define the scale of ambition I should have. Two other individuals had a categorically similar impact across my whole journey — Ben Segal and Francois Grey. I cannot thank them enough! 🙌 There’s truly something about the Swiss research ecosystem that enables these kinds of experiences — where mentorship, independence, and ambition come together so naturally. 🇨🇭 Lots of exciting updates coming soon 🚀