Prerana grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal in a family of photographers. After finishing high school in Nepal, Prerana joined Bates College in Maine for her undergraduate degree, majoring in Biological chemistry. She got interested in pursuing academic research as a career after interning in the laboratory of John Blenis at Harvard medical school, where she realized that it was incredibly fascinating to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms of biological phenomena. She joined The Rockefeller University as a PhD student, and decided to delve deeper into mouse genetics and behavior by joining the laboratory of Molecular Biology, headed by Nathaniel Heintz. She generated multiple transgenic mouse strains useful for the broader scientific community in delineating molecular profile of specific cell populations in the brain. She embarked on a candidate molecule, Wolframin (Wfs1), that was enriched in the superficial layer of pyramidal cells in the prefrontal cortex and co-expressed with neurotrophic factor-3 that piqued her interest. Deleterious mutations in this gene cause Wolfram Syndrome, a neuropsychiatric and metabolic disorder that manifests in a high prevalence of anxiety and depression related symptoms. She carried out neocortex-wide and prefrontal cortex-restricted deletions of this gene in transgenic mice, and discovered a molecular pathway for stress susceptibility in depressive behaviors, spanning dysregulated endocrine response as well as behavioral despair and anhedonia.

Alongside her dissertation research, Prerana was developing a protein synthesis inhibitor that could be genetically encoded and drug-inducible. When she started as a postdoc in the laboratory of Eric Klann at NYU, she applied this chemogenetic tool to decipher the protein synthesis requirement in memory consolidation at the level of individual cell types. She devised parallel chemogenetic strategies to target both general and cap-dependent translation during memory stabilization and showed that both modules of translation are essential for long-term memory formation and recall. She demonstrated cell type specificity of protein synthesis requirement in consolidating cued threat and cued safety related memories, indicating an importance of using cell type-specific tools to understand causal mechanisms in learning and memory.

Prerana is a mother of two wonderful children, and enjoys raising her kids with her husband. She has been an advocate for the less privileged, in her capacity as a Program Director of Help Nepal Network (HeNN US), a global charity that raises funds for community-led health and education related efforts in rural Nepal. She is also a founding board member of International Nepali Biomedical Society (INBS), an organization that provides a platform for connecting researchers of Nepali origin worldwide. As a faculty at Stony Brook University, she serves in the Advisory committee of Turner fellowship. The Dr. W Burghardt Turner Fellowship, coordinated by Center for Inclusive Education, is a graduate fellowship program for eligible underrepresented students whose immediate academic plans include obtaining graduate or professional degrees at Stony Brook University. In her free time, Prerana enjoys running, traveling, and listening to music.