• Samarth IVF
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  • Head of Embryology & Research

The Scientist
Who Stays.

"If you are a pujari of Saraswati, everything else will follow."

For Dr. Kriti, Samarth IVF is not where her story began, it’s where it found its purpose. As the embryologist who holds the most precise and consequential role in every IVF cycle, she brings something rarer than technique to her work: an unshakeable belief that doing good science, quietly and honestly, is enough.

Roots

Agra, India

Experience

6-7 Years Lab Research

Philosophy

Imandari & Knowledge

Select Narrative Layout

Roots in Responsibility

Dr. Kriti grew up in Agra, in a family entirely rooted in government service. Her parents, grandparents all had dedicated their lives to public duty. The lesson she absorbed wasn't ambition in the conventional sense. It was this: take up a responsibility, and play your part fully. Money, recognition, success these would follow on their own.

"Imandari was always emphasised," she says of her upbringing. "And if you're imandar in life, you are imandar in your work too." That integrity became her compass.

Roots

Agra, India

Imandari as a Family Compass

The Lab Was Always Home

By the time Dr. Kriti reached her school years, she already knew where she belonged. Biology practicals in Class 10 weren't a chore, they were the highlight. By Class 12, she was more fascinated by what she was learning than by the marks she was earning. She never chased grades; she chased knowledge. Science, for her, was not a path to a profession, it was the thing itself.

That curiosity led her to one of India's premier research institutes, where she spent her early career immersed in a world of India's finest scientists. For six to seven years, twelve-hour days in the lab weren't exceptional; they were the norm.

"I loved it," she says simply. "I can't do it now because of grown responsibilities. But I'd still love to." Her natural instinct was to absorb everything, ask questions, and move quickly. Across every training batch she was part of, she was known as a fast learner, someone who grasped not just the technique, but the reasoning beneath it.

The Sanctuary

Deep Research Labs

Six Years of Twelve-Hour Days

The Breakthrough

Collaboration

Learning that research without communication is an island, and ideas require active exchange to impact lives.

The Mentor Who Made Her Speak

Dr. Kriti's earliest role model was Dr. Sachidanand Day. Under his guidance, she realised something that would quietly reshape her: she was too locked inside her own mind. Research without communication is an island. Ideas need to be shared, challenged, discussed.

After eight or nine months of working alongside Dr. Day, she began to step out to exchange thoughts, to listen, to engage. That shift from solitary focus to collaborative openness would define her later role at Samarth

The Call That Changed Direction

In 2011, Dr. Kriti had recently moved to Ambad and was scanning for opportunities—applying to research institutes, looking for the right fit. Then, by chance, Dr. Harshalata and Dr. Atish came to visit her husband. They were batchmates. They mentioned they were starting an IVF centre. She asked, almost offhandedly, who was handling the embryology.

Things fell into place.

“I knew myself,” she says. “I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted an organisation where I could grow with the organisation and introduce new ideas.” What made her certain about Samarth wasn’t a grand promise it was observing Dr. Harshalata’s openness. “She never refuses new things. The environment, the people, and freedom told me it could work.”

The Sanctuary

Deep Research Labs

Six Years of Twelve-Hour Days

The Scientist the Patients Never See But Always Benefit From

Dr. Kriti's work happens behind the scenes. No patient sees the embryology lab. And yet every successful outcome flows through it.

Her philosophy is steady and clear: fertility science is always evolving, and any embryologist worth their role must evolve with it. When vitrification, the flash-freezing technique that revolutionized embryo preservation first arrived, Samarth didn't rush it into patient care. They experimented, standardized, and only then scaled.

"There were setbacks due to newness," she acknowledges. "But it took some time to standardise the technique. That process was necessary." This patience with process is Dr. Kriti's signature. It is also Samarth's guarantee.

The Methodology

Vitrification Process

Experimenting, Standardising, and Only Then Scaling

Fighting the Myths

If there is one thing Dr. Kriti wants patients to unlearn, it is the fiction of certainty. The IVF industry, she says, gets one thing dangerously wrong: the promise of 100% success.

"Having a Grade 1 embryo increases your chances. It never gives a guarantee." Too many clinics sell embryo grading as a verdict a promise of conception. when biology simply does not work that way.

Equally damaging are the myths around donor cycles ("the baby will be someone else's"), and the belief that conditions like PCOS must be resolved before IVF is possible. These misconceptions delay treatment, erode trust, and cause unnecessary suffering. Her answer to all of it is the same: educate, make aware, be transparent.

“You cannot manipulate people through hope.”

What Success Looks Like Now

"When people say 'the results are positive' with a broad smile on their faces."

At 25, Dr. Kriti imagined a career in academic journals, publications, and a central research institution. Today, her definition of success is quieter and far more immediate. She isn't creating new knowledge in the way she once imagined. But she is doing something she considers equally profound: applying knowledge, adapting to innovation, and giving direct benefit to the couples who walk through Samarth's doors.

Her leadership principle, stated without ceremony: "Make your own mistakes and learn from them."

Her personal operating system, drawn from the Bhagavad Gita and carried since she was eleven: "Give me the courage to change what I can." Not a plea for help. A demand for agency.

Doing the Work. Precisely. Honestly. Every Single Time.

Unfiltered Reflection

6-7 Years Lab Research

  • Part 1

The Inciting Incident - The Pujari of Saraswati

If you ask me why I do this work, I can answer in a single breath:
because I was never interested in anything else.

I grew up in Agra, in a family entirely in government service my parents, my grandparents. There were no entrepreneurs in my household, no one building empires. What was built, instead, was character. The lesson I absorbed before I could articulate it was this: take up a responsibility and play your part, fully and honestly. Money and recognition are consequences, not goals. My family had a saying I’ve carried my whole life “If you are a pujari of Saraswati, success and everything else will follow.”

That idea that devotion to knowledge is its own reward became the foundation of everything I would do.

By the time I was in Class 10, I knew where I belonged. The biology practicals weren’t something I endured; they were the part of school I looked forward to. In Class 12, it was clearer still. I wasn’t pursuing marks. I was pursuing understanding. Around fifteen or sixteen, the direction began to sharpen on its own. Embryology wasn’t a deliberate choice so much as a natural filtration. The more I learned, the more it called to me.

I was always a fast learner. Across every training batch I was part of, I was the one who grasped things quickly not to show off, but because I simply couldn’t help being fascinated. That fascination has never left.

My Aha moment wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a single day or a single patient. It was the accumulation of years spent in a lab realising: this is exactly where I am supposed to be.

  • Part 2

The Quest - Twelve Hours, Six Years, One Direction

My early career was spent at one of India’s premier research institutes, surrounded by the country’s finest scientists. For six to seven years, twelve-hour days were standard. I wouldn’t do that now responsibilities have grown, and I wouldn’t be able to but I loved every hour of it. I was not just doing science; I was becoming a scientist.

My most important mentor during this period was Dr. Sachidanand Day. He changed something essential in me. I was, by nature, deeply introverted content to stay inside my own mind, inside the lab. After eight or nine months working alongside him, I realised that staying quiet was holding my research back. Ideas need collision. Feedback needs exchange. He didn’t tell me to change; he showed me, by example, what was possible when you stepped out.

I began to communicate. To engage. To share. That shift from solitary absorption to collaborative openness prepared me for everything that came next.

In 2011, I had recently moved to Ambad. I was searching for opportunities applying to smaller institutes, looking for the right fit. Dr. Harshalata and Dr. Atish came to meet my husband; they were batchmates. They mentioned they were starting an IVF centre. I asked who was handling the embryology. There was a pause. Things fell into place.

What convinced me wasn’t a promise of salary or title. It was watching Dr. Harshalata’s mind at work. She was open genuinely, constitutionally open to new ideas. For an embryologist, that is everything. A doctor who resists innovation is a locked door. Harsha was a wide-open window. I knew: this was where I could grow with the organisation, introduce new methods, and do the work I was trained to do on my own terms, with full integrity.

  • Part 3

The Villain - Fighting the Fiction of Certainty

Every founder fights something.
My battle is against a very specific kind of lie: the fiction of guaranteed outcomes.

The IVF industry gets one thing dangerously wrong and that thing is the promise of 100% success.

Here is the truth that too few clinics will say plainly: a Grade 1 embryo improves your chances. It does not guarantee your pregnancy. There are too many variables. The chance factor is real. When clinics present embryo grading as a verdict as a promise they are setting couples up for a devastating crash when biology takes its natural, unpredictable course.

There are other myths just as harmful. The belief that in IVF, the baby will somehow be someone else’s a fear rooted in misunderstanding, not medicine. The belief that a woman with PCOS must first “fix” her cycle before pursuing IVF, when in fact, if there is an infertility issue, that is precisely what must be addressed first.

These myths delay treatment. They drive couples toward wrong decisions. They create shame where there should be clarity.

My response to all of them is the same. Educate. Make aware. Be transparent. I will never tell a patient what they want to hear in order to win their business. I will tell them what they need to know in order to make an informed decision about their own bodies and their own lives.

Ethical marketing, to me, means one thing: you cannot manipulate people through hope. Hope must be honest, or it is not hope it is cruelty in disguise.

  • Part 4

The Struggle - The Process Was the Price

The hardest moments in building anything at Samarth have never been personal crises of confidence. They have been scientific challenges: the gap between knowing a technique exists and knowing how to make it yours.

When vitrification arrived—the flash-freezing technique that transformed how we preserve embryos—we did not rush it into patient care. We began experimenting. Not on patients—on the technique itself. We wanted to understand it from the inside before we trusted it with someone’s future.

There were setbacks. The newness of the method created errors we hadn’t anticipated. There were moments where results didn’t match expectations. I won’t pretend otherwise.

But here is what I believe, borrowed from the Bhagavad Gita and carried since I was eleven: “Give me courage to change what I can.” Not a prayer for things to be easier. A commitment to keep working until they are.

We standardised the technique. It took time. It required the patience to sit with uncertainty without abandoning the process. And today, vitrification is a cornerstone of what we offer—not because we adopted it early, but because we did the hard work of making it reliable.

I have never experienced stress in the way most people describe it. I operate on a simple belief: play your part, and things will happen. You don’t need to carry the weight of outcomes you cannot fully control. What you can control is the quality of your effort, the honesty of your process, and the care you bring to every decision.

My leadership rule for my team reflects this: make your own mistakes and learn from them. Growth doesn’t come from watching someone else fail. It comes from doing the work yourself, with full accountability.

  • Part 5

The Tribe - The People Who Come to Us With Everything

Who are we doing this for?
We are doing this for the people who are tired of being misled. For the couple who has been promised the moon by three different clinics and come to us hollowed out by false hope. For the woman who has been told her PCOS disqualifies her from IVF, when the real issue is her fertility is the thing we should have been treating all along. For the patient who doesn’t understand why the Grade 1 embryo didn’t result in a pregnancy, and needs an honest answer more than a comforting one.

What I want patients to feel when they walk through our doors or when they encounter Samarth online is this: we know what you are carrying, and you are not alone in it. In a society that still places enormous social weight on a couple’s ability to have children, the judgment is real. The whispers are real. The feeling that something is wrong with you is real. We know that. We feel that.

The embryology lab is a place most patients never see. But every moment I spend in it is in service to that couple sitting in a consultation room somewhere, hoping. My job is to give their hope the best possible scientific foundation not by inflating their expectations, but by working with precision, discipline, and honesty every single day.

 
  • Part 6

The Evolution - Not Ambitious. Just Honest.

I do not describe myself as ambitious. I know that sounds strange coming from someone who spent six years putting in twelve-hour days in a premier research institute. But ambition, as I understand it, implies wanting more for its own sake. That has never been me.

What I want is to do good work. To stay current in a field that never stops evolving because in fertility science, standing still is a form of negligence. To build an organisation where new ideas are welcome, where the procedures are standardised across every centre so that a couple in a Tier-3 city receives the same quality of embryology care as one in Mumbai.

At 25, I thought success looked like publications, a central institute, academic recognition. Now, success is when a couple walks out of our clinic with a broad smile and says: the results are positive.

I am not creating new knowledge in the formal sense anymore. But I am doing something I have come to value just as deeply: translating the world’s best science into real outcomes for real families. Adapting. Improving. Staying honest.

Samarth means “capable.” We are here to ensure that every couple who comes to us leaves more capable than when they arrived, better informed, better supported, and better served. That is the work. And I am not done with it.

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