Chowdhuri returned to India after her PhD, working at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for eight years. During her time at TIFR, Chowdhuri's cosmic ray studies contributed heavily to the discovery of K mesons. Bibha temporarily left TIFR in 1953 and subsequently joined cosmic ray physicist L. Leprince Ringuet’s lab under the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris). She studied and identified many new K mesons in cloud chambers on the Alps, publishing the research in the Nuovo Cimento in 1957. In 1954 she was a visiting researcher at the University of Michigan. She was appointed because Homi Bhabha was still establishing the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and contacted her thesis examiners for advice on outstanding graduate students. She joined the Physical Research Laboratory and became involved with the Kolar Gold Fields experiments. She moved to Kolkata to work at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics. She taught physics in French.