PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Shubha Tole obtained her BSc in Life Sciences and Biochemistry from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai (1987). Her MSc and PhD are from Caltech, USA. She worked at the University of Chicago as a post-doctoral fellow, and joined the Tata Institute in Mumbai, India as a faculty member in 1999. 

Tole is a recipient of the Infosys Science Foundation Award for Life sciences (2014); the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (2010); the Research Award for Innovation in Neurosciences (RAIN) from the Society for Neuroscience (2008); the National Woman Bioscientist award from the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India (2008); the Swarnajayanti Fellowship awarded by the Department of Science in Technology, Govt. of India (2005); and the Wellcome Trust Senior International Fellowship (1999).  She is a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Science, and the National Academy of Science.  Internationally, she is an Associate member of EMBO and the current President of the International Society for Developmental Neuroscience (ISDN). 

Tole served as Chair of the Women in Science panel and as a member of the panel on Scientific Values of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2019-2022, and on the Board of Directors of the ALBA Network 2021-2024. 

Tole is the newly elected President-elect of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO)  https://ibro.org/ibro-elections-2024/

After a 1-year term as President-elect in 2025, she will serve as President for 3 years.  She will be the first IBRO President from a developing country.

Tole believes that communicating science is as important as pursuing it, and actively engages in public outreach via workshops in schools and colleges, and writes blogs aimed at helping students and postdocs plan their careers.  In 2022 she was recognized for her mentorship by being awarded the Bernice Grafstein Award for Oustanding Accomplishments in Mentoring by the Society for Neuroscience, USA.

The STole lab welcomes free and open discussion. We value collegiality, professionalism, passion, and work-life balance. Lab meetings include not only science but also science communication, discussions of experimental techniques and sometimes, dance, theater, language, and music; research papers as well as interesting articles/books/tweets/blogs on any topic of interest. Humor is to be found aplenty in our daily lives and memorialized in our "lab quotes."