SJ completed her Ph.D. in condensed matter physics with Sriram Ramaswamy (IISc Bangalore) and Gareth Alexander (University of Warwick), which included a Raman-Charpak exchange fellowship in Paris. She subsequently held a Newton-Simons Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, working in the group of Michael Cates.
Her research interests are broadly in nonequilibrium statistical physics and soft matter, with a particular focus on hydrodynamic theories of ordered phases in active matter. At the de Pablo group, her current work involves field theories of active biphasic systems and solitons in nematic liquid crystals.