Seemanti Ramanath

Sr. Lecturer

Dr.  Seemanti Ramanath completed her Ph.D. degree at RPI.  Towards her Ph.D degree, she used cloning techniques to create multiple transgenic fly lines to study the Muscle Physiology of Drosophila melanogaster (fruitflies), focussing on understanding the structure-function of myosin isoforms.  Her undergraduate degree is in Microbiology from the Sophia College for Women, Mumbai, India.  Her master's degree is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she worked in the area of Plant Molecular Systematics.  This research work required the collection and analysis of data from DNA sequences, as well as the study of morphological traits of native North American and Meso-American plant species, within Apiaceae subfamily Apioideae.  This endemic plant group includes several well-known herbs and edibles, such as Daucus carota (carrots).    Post-doctoral training at RPI, immediately after her Ph.D., allowed her to extend her Ph.D. thesis work.  For further post doctoral training, she moved cross the River Hudson, to SUNY Albany, where she  investigated the biochemical effects on intein splicing in an ancient iron-sulfur protein, SufB in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  She started teaching BIOL 1015 Labs "Introduction to Biology Labs" in the Fall of 2014, at RPI .  At RPI, she teaches BIOL 1010 "Introduction to Biology" during the Summer II term of each academic year.  She teaches BIOL 2960 "Human Evolution Lab" during the Summer I term, and BIOL 1961 "Sense and Signal" during the Summer III term.  Till date, Dr. Ramanath has taught greater than 7,200 students at RPI.  Dr. Ramanath strongly believes in creating a welcoming environment in her labs (37 majors enrolled in BIOL 1015 labs in Fall 2022), and being inclusive of diverse intellectual, creative and cultural pursuits and perspectives.  Having lived in 7 countries, she speaks Assamese, Hindi, and English is her third language.  Upstate New York is home, and the U.S.A. is her home country.  But, Dr. Ramanath was born in Assam, India, at the foothills of the Himalayas.  As a child, she spent 2 years in Adelaide, Australia.  As an adult, she spent a couple of months in Linkoping, Sweden, a summer in Tsukuba, Japan, and almost a year in Stuttgart, Germany.  Most recently, she spent 1 month in Hong Kong, China.  Learning Swahili in college with her Kenyan friends from Nairobi, Hiragana (Japanese) during a summer in Japan, introductory German via a 6 month long crash course, and Sanskrit during a year in middle school gave her a taste of our rich human linguistic diversity.  These life experiences have taught Dr. Ramanath, that on the whole, there is much unity in our shared human socio-cultural diversity, irregardless of our individual socio-economic status, or our separate geographic origins.  Hence, in her labs, participation in group lab-work is emphasized because it provides an opportunity for all voices to be heard.  Students get together in labs, and work on a common project.  What emerges is novel, and unpredictable from a mere knowledge of the parts, and greater than the sum of the individual participants.  This lab dynamic, not only enables students to insightfully see several aspects of a problem, through the different perspectives of peers, but allows them a chance to engage in peer-to-peer dialogue, and to make connections across disciplines and majors.  Once such connections are built, the impact of such collaborations typically endure.  This scholastic network supports students, as they weave their way through college, and beyond, into the workplace.  It is connections, collaborations and community, that are crucial towards the success of every student's professional and personal life.If you have not yet taken a course with Dr. Ramanath, what are you waiting for?  If you have already taken one of her courses, be sure to write her an email including your glad tidings since you graduated from RPI!