Pushkar G. Ghanekar

Peregrinating epicure. Drug Hunter. Techno optimist.

Resume

Hello! I’m Pushkar.

I currently work as a Sr. Research Advisor in Eli Lilly’s Global Discovery Chemistry & Cheminformatics team. I collaborate with medicine discovery teams to find innovative solutions to patient needs around the world. In particular, I develop AI-based methods to augment human creativity and maximize serendipity. I am broadly interested in chemistry and biology, with a passion for understanding how medicines are discovered, developed, and commercialized.

I completed my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in August 2021. While at Purdue, I worked on building a molecule-level understanding of catalysts to further our knowledge of chemical transformations. This research aimed to improve energy storage and conversion devices like batteries.

You can read more about my Ph.D. journey here.

Besides research, I love to teach and share science with as many people as possible. Outside of work, I enjoy cooking, gaming, diving deep in arcane internet rabbit holes, reading history and philosophy, and going on longer-than-necessary bike rides. Anything that keeps me away from doing laundry or dishes.

I maintain a data science blog where I document my thoughts, tips, and list of helpful resources related to chemical science, algorithms, and code.

Curiosity, humility, and empathy are my foundational beliefs.

Two principles drive my work:

i. Intentionality must precede application

ii. How do you anything is how you do everything.

Some core mental models I subscribe to:
  • Trust in compounding and persistence; you don't need to be always right, just less stupid.
  • Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it and get to work.
  • Have strong convictions, loosely held.
  • Follow curiosity and passion, not trends.
  • Ideas are not owned, but come with debts to those who came before.
  • Life is surprisingly short, so solve problems that interest and excite you most. Richard Hamming's Lecture
  • Happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop.
  • "The days are long but the decades are short"
  • Don't be the best, try to be the only.

news

Oct 4, 2021 Started in Eli Lilly & Company as research scientist focusing on cheminformatics. :pill: :crystal_ball:
Aug 11, 2021 Presenting the work on Graph-based machine learning framework at ACS Fall 2021 (virtual oral presentation)
Aug 6, 2021 Successfully completed my Ph.D. thesis defense! :sparkles: :smile:
Aug 1, 2021 Successfully completed a 10-week mentoring assignment for CISTAR and Purdue REU