Coimbatore TNAU student presents PhD defense virtually

Coimbatore: Due to the COVID-19 lockdown and the subsequent restrictions on gatherings, doctoral student Sneha Patil presented her PhD defense via Microsoft Teams.

TNAU doctoral student Sneha Patil, a scholar from the Department of Plant Pathology did not let the global pandemic stop her from completing her PhD. On Tuesday, May 12, she presented her defense via a video conference call from her off-campus residence.

Sneha is a doctoral student studying Plant Pathology at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. After months spent in diligent preparation for the biggest day of her TNAU career, she logged into an MS Teams meeting to defend her research before a virtual audience of about 60 people, including advisers, classmates, friends, and family. “I was definitely a little apprehensive,” Sneha said. “I was worried that all the effort I had put into making my slides and presentation might be lost in the ether of streaming it.”

Over the past couple of weeks, as the threat of the novel coronavirus has grown, the circumstances pertaining to Sneha’s defense became more and more uncertain. Although the date and time of her presentation never changed, where and how she would present became rapidly evolving questions. When residents of Coimbatore were ordered to shelter-in-place, Sneha and her advisors decided she would have to go on with a completely virtual presentation.

Sneha’s defense began at 10.00 AM and unfolded in her living room, where she placed her computer on a cardboard box. Although presenting her defense online wasn’t how she’d always envisaged it, she said it did afford her some comforts.

During her presentation, Sneha defended her research on “Metabolic Response upon streptomycin resistant and sensitive Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria in tomatoes and strategies to mitigate resistance mechanism for disease management”. After a presentation that lasted just over an hour, followed by a private MS Teams session with her five faculty examinees, Sneha was declared a doctor.

Although having to shelter in place was not an ideal way of marking the completion of her doctoral studies, Sneha said she understood that the well-being of everyone involved was important.“I know it was the right thing to do to keep the community safe,” she said, “but it was a little bit sad because this is likely my last quarter on campus, so to not be able to interact with my classmates and enjoy that honeymoon phase of School of Post Graduate Studies felt unceremonious.”

At TNAU, the completion of doctoral defense presentations is often marked with celebrations by classmates and advisers. Despite the physical distance between them, Sneha’s colleagues made sure to keep up the tradition. The Vice-Chancellor Dr. N. Kumar, while congratulating Sneha, said “following the advice of the Government, TNAU has taken this step to organize defense of dissertations online. While a remote defense is not what students had envisioned, I am very proud of how they are handling this situation” Dr. J.S. Kennedy, Dean School of Post Graduate Studies, commented “with everything happening and all the uncertainty because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been really important to take stock of all the positive things going on like the support to the student community remotely. The effort of organizing dissertation defense using online means will continue until the COVID-19 situation becomes better”.

Now that she has successfully completed her PhD, Sneha aspires to take up a postdoctoral fellowship at World Vegetable Centre, Taiwan.