She resigned from the foreign service in 2003 after being awarded the Sasakawa Young Leaders' Scholarship to study at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs.
After graduating from Princeton, she worked at the World Bank's Washington D.C. headquarters before deciding to return to Australia to attend medical school.
Throughout her career changes, she has continued to write poetry, short stories, travel articles and, more recently, narrative essays in medicine which have been published in 100 Words (a journal published by the University of Iowa's International Writing Program), The Australian newspaper, Australian Doctor, the Calcutta Statesman, Hektoen International, the Post Courier (PNG) and the Times of Papua New Guinea.
Peter Forbes, Editor, Poetry Review, London, who was the Chairman of the awarding committee, described her as the best promising young poet in English from India.
Shampa Sinha had also won the Special Prize for Young Poet in the Third National Poetry Competition 1991 for her poem "The Difference".