Soumi is an international PhD student joining us from the City of Joy, Kolkata, India. She has completed her Integrated Master’s degree in Biotechnology from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. At Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Soumi is pursuing her PhD from Curtin University, under the co-supervision of Dr. Ankur Sharma and Dr. Archita Mishra. Her PhD project involves developing spatial omics methods to characterize the ‘oncofetal niche’ and investigate its potential role in tumour immunity. Additionally, she will attempt to expand our understanding of the mechanism of ‘immune priming’ during development and disease which enables immunosuppression. Prior to this, she worked at Tata Translational Cancer Research Centre as a Research Assistant (genomics). Here, she was involved in the ICiCLe ALL-14-a phase IV, multicentric, national clinical trial for newly diagnosed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia patients, where she investigated novel driver mutations and developed sensitive techniques for Measurable Residual Disease detection. Apart from academia, Soumi is an avid social worker. She holds the post of Youth motivator at the West Bengal Voluntary Blood donor forum and has been the President of the Rotaract Club. In her spare time, she indulges in leisure painting and food blogging.