Samarpita Sengupta, Ph.D.

About Dr. Sengupta

Samarpita Sengupta, PhD, is the Assistant Dean for Research in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Arizona. She will be responsible for integrating and elevating research activities and educational opportunities for DVM students as well as supporting DVM faculty in their research.

In the past, she has served as an Assistant Professor and the Director of Research in the Department of Physician Assistant (PA) Studies where she built up the research portfolio and funding of the department. She created and executed strategic programs and initiatives designed to mentor students and faculty, increase student participation in research, elevate research by faculty, as well as maintain accreditation. She has also co-directed the Evidence Based Medicine didactic course in the PA curriculum and has delivered lectures to students in the Applied Clinical Research program within the School of Health Professions.

She has previously served an Instructor and Director of the Neuroscience Research Development (NeRD) Office at UT Southwestern Medical Center. In this role, she was involved in all aspects of research development within the O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, such as funding identification, idea generation, proposal development, inclusive team science, and grant submission to funding agency. In addition, she has contributed to publication of peer reviewed manuscripts. She regularly conducted workshops and seminars on effective scientific writing principles, grant and manuscript writing for faculty, students and fellows within the department. She has mentored clinical fellows and early-stage faculty in this position.

She received a PhD in Cell Regulation from the Department of Pharmacology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Her PhD dissertation project, in the laboratory of Dr. Melanie Cobb, focused on the With no Lysine (WNK) kinases. She identified a novel interaction between WNKs and the mammalian target of rapamycin complex II (mTORC2) implicating mTORC2 in the regulation of ion balance and homeostasis. This work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 and was cited in the Faculty of 1000 as of being of special significance in the field.

She then pursued a postdoctoral fellowship for two years working on signaling mechanisms in the pheromone sensing pathway. Using Drosophila melanogaster as a model system, she studied pheromone sensing pathways, especially the 11-cis vaccenyl acetate (cVA) pathway which is a male specific pheromone that promotes courtship in females and inhibits courtship in males. She continued her postdoctoral training in the Department of Pediatrics. Under Drs. Philip Shaul and Cheiko Mineo, she worked on understanding the signaling mechanisms in Antiphospholipid syndrome that result in pregnancy complications and miscarriages.

She is a member of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals and serves on the Board of Directors within the organization. Within the organization, she has served as a mentor to many research development professionals. She has received training in mentorship through the Center for Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) via their Entering Mentoring Curriculum. She is also trained as a facilitator for this training. She has also been trained to facilitate Implicit Bias awareness and remediation workshop.

Education

• Ph.D. Cell Regulation
  • University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Texas, United States
• M.S. Biotechnology
  • Jawaharlal Nehru Vishvavidyalaya, India
• B.S. Human Biology
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India