Dr. Podury is currently an Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery resident at the University of California San Diego. Before beginning her residency, she earned a BA in neuroscience from Cornell University, where she was a Hunter R. Rawlings Presidential Research Scholar, Barry M. Goldwater Scholar Honorable Mention, and a Phi Beta Kappa member. She earned her MD from Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program.
During her time at Cornell, Dr. Podury earned several awards in recognition of her research, including the Einhorn Discovery Grant, the Zuckerman Prize for Excellence in Bioengineering Research, the Ewing Family Service Award, and the Menschell Cornell Commitment Award. While studying neural circuits, Archana worked at a syringe exchange in Ithaca, New York, where she witnessed firsthand the mechanics of court-based drug rehabilitation. Listening to patients’ stories deepened her conviction that science alone could not capture multiple dimensions of health and disease, which paved her path toward medicine.
At Harvard, Dr. Podury received $90,000 in scholarship support as a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow and David Margin Graduate Student Leadership Fellow; she was also a recipient of the Massachusetts Medical Society Information Technology Award and Freeberg Student Research Award. Her work has centered on developing technologies to improve patient’s quality of life. In the Boyden Lab at MIT, she used optical imaging methods to characterize circuit dysfunction in human brain organoid models of neurodevelopmental disease, culminating in a publication in Nature.
Dr. Podury worked in the Dhand Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to apply network science tools to understand how patients’ social environments influence their health outcomes during disability. She is currently working in the Otopathology lab at Massachusetts Eye & Ear to study implant options for patients with sensorineural hearing loss and is applying machine learning methods to study surgical outcomes.
As an admissions coach, she enjoys listening to students' stories and is committed to helping them communicate their interests genuinely and in alignment with their values.