Bhattacharyya graduated from Presidency College, Kolkata (now called Presidency University, Kolkata) with Honours in Physics and obtained M.Sc. degree from the Science College campus of University of Calcutta. She started her research career in the Department of Biophysics and Molecular Biology, University of Calcutta with a PhD degree in 1991. She worked as a research associate at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and in 1994 joined University of Calcutta as an assistant professor. Later, she was awarded an Energy Biosciences Overseas Fellowship by the Department of Biotechnology and worked as visiting scientist at University of California, San Diego, USA.