Shashikanth obtained PhD in Genetics from Osmania University, India in 2008. During this time his research was in the computational mapping of splicing factors and it's regulation in Rice Genome. After PhD studies, he joined as senior scientist in Malaysia based Research company Sime Darby. During this time he worked on Palm Oil Genome project in Genome assembly and developed several molecular tools for the breeders to improve the crop quality. After 2 years, he joined in Research School of Biology, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra as ARC Super Science Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Barry Pogson. He worked on different bioinformatic research projects in relation to genetic variations, small RNAs, non-coding RNAs, assembly (genomic and transcriptomics), differential gene expression (micro-array, RNA-seq) and RNA structural regulation (riboswitches) in plant and non-model organisms. Currently undertaking bioinformatics research at Filnders University (Medical and Biological Sciences) and providing bioinformatc services for the Flinders Genomics Facility.