Laasya Mandalapu

What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?

Leadership isn’t about having the answers or managing people; it’s asking the question nobody else has said out loud yet. Managing several concurrent studies with the NHS taught me it’s always better to ask than to assume. A five minute conversation is better than a five week delay.

What do you consider to be your most important career achievement or milestone?

Reinventing myself across three countries. I trained as a pharmacist in India, ran clinical research operations in London, and am now a doctoral candidate in Boston, and each move meant proving myself from scratch. I am also proud of co-founding GenieRX, a pharmacogenomics decision support platform.

What do you aspire to accomplish in your career and why? What obstacles will you overcome?

I want to change how we look at medicine, aging, and disease. The biggest bottleneck isn’t ideas, it’s data: how we collect it and whether we listen to it. My myeloma research is the start. The major obstacle will be tackling fragmented systems and inertia.

Describe an amazing opportunity in your STEM career.

Joining the Clinical and Translational Science program at Tufts. It’s the first time I can use everything I learned in pharmacy, in epidemiology, in operations and in health economics on one problem, which is detecting treatment failure earlier in multiple myeloma.

How was AWIS helped you professionally and/or personally?

As someone who arrived in the US without a built in network, AWIS gave me something you can’t put on a CV, learning from women who’ve navigated exactly the transitions I’m now experiencing. It’s equal parts career resource and reminder that you’re not doing this alone. Nice to be a part of community!

What is your favorite word? (only one word)

Yet.

How do you define it?

The three letters that create a timeline. “I can’t do this” is an end; “I can’t do this yet” is a plan.

How has this word influenced or inspired your career?

Every pivot in my career started as something I couldn’t do yet. I wasn’t an epidemiologist yet. I hadn’t run a research portfolio yet. I wasn’t a PhD candidate or a co-founder yet. It’s the word that keeps a setback from becoming an identity. The word gives me hope.

How does AWIS impact your career journey?

AWIS shortens the distance between “I wonder how she did that” and actually asking her. Mentorship, visibility, and the occasional reality check all things a career in science quietly runs on.

What are you currently reading or listening to?

A rotation of AI in healthcare podcasts on my commute and, for balance, fiction that has absolutely nothing to do with medicine.

What do you consider the best professional or personal advice you’ve ever received?

“Yes, and” is used in improv, but you should apply it in real life as well. Always think, yes, that’s great, and how can I add value to this? How can I contribute to this? This thought process creates opportunities.

Laasya Mandalapu is a doctoral candidate in Clinical and Translational Science at Tufts, researching earlier detection of treatment failure in multiple myeloma using real-world data, pharmacometric modeling, and patient-reported outcomes. A pharmacist with an MSc in Epidemiology (Imperial College London), she has worked with the NHS and IQVIA, and co-founded GenieRX, a pharmacogenomics decision support platform. Having built her career across three countries, she is a proud advocate for women in STEM worldwide.