By: Shreya Chandrasekar
Dr. Sangeetha Madhavan was always fascinated by the human body, thus prompting her clinical training as a physical therapist. Subsequently, her decision to pursue training as a research scientist in rehabilitation science arose from the numerous questions she had as a clinician. Dr. Madhavan currently works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and is also the Director of the Brain Plasticity Laboratory at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Her lab is primarily focused on developing individualized therapeutic approaches that use technologies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to advance existing neurorehabilitation practices. With support from NIH, AHA, NIDRR and others, Dr. Madhavan is currently investigating the effects of cortical priming on walking outcomes in stroke survivors. Her passion for her work is evident in the way she talks about her quest for understanding how the brain learns and recovers. According to Dr. Madhavan, the most exciting part of her work is designing research experiments that get her closer to answers of questions that will ultimately contribute to the advancement of science and thus help her target patient population. She believes that designing robust research experiments is the foundation on which successful data acquisition rests. In addition to her work in the lab, she also loves teaching and disseminating what she learns in the lab to students who are training to be future clinicians.
For Dr. Madhavan, the most gratifying part of her job is hearing from a student that he/she was inspired to pursue a particular topic of research because of her lecture. She is motivated by the possibility of playing a small but significant role in her mentee’s professional development and personal success. I believe that Dr. Madhavan’s desire and passion towards mentor-ship stems from the acknowledgement of the pivotal role that her own teachers and mentors have played in her career. However, there are also parts of the job that Dr. Madhavan finds frustrating. According to her, one such frustrating aspect of her job is the constant endeavor to procure funding.
While she does not recollect any major incidents that occurred to her because she was a woman in science, she says that gender plays a role in her professional life in many different ways. She finds that networking opportunities are harder to come by for women and that female scientists have to work twice as hard to build their network in a male dominated profession.
No two days in Dr. Madhavan’s life are similar. Being a mother of two kids who are 10 and 5, a teacher and the head of a research lab means that Dr. Madhavan has to always prioritize her tasks based on what needs her most urgent attention. She is an early riser and uses her time in the mornings for some uninterrupted work, so that she can spend the rest of her day in meetings, teaching or analyzing data. Outside of work, Dr. Madhavan loves spending time with her kids. Apart from reading historical fiction, she also loves to spend her time cooking, gardening and travelling. With so many diverse interests and professional goals, Dr. Madhavan believes that it is paramount to maintain a sense of balance within the chaos. While perfectly prioritizing tasks and getting them done can be a struggle on most days, she focuses on achieving a sense of balance in the long run.