Indian Women Are Conquering the World of Science

Have you heard of Tim Hunt? If you haven't, he's the scientist from the University College of London who was dismissed following his sexist comment about women scientists. “You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry,” said Tim Hunt at a conference in Seoul. His comments drew ire and sarcastic retorts from women scientists all over the world who posted pictures of themselves at work with the hashtag #distractinglysexy. The names Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, Mary Leakey, Janaki Ammal, Grace Hopper and several others seem to mean nothing to anyone who agrees with Tim Hunt.

If comments on social media have taught us anything, is that there will always be people who will question the significance of Indian women in science. Because Indian women are far less capable than women in the western world, no? Well, here's some proof to the contrary.

Tessy Thomas

Tessy Thomas is the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India. She is the Director of Advanced Systems Laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Hyderabad, and is also the Project Director of Agni V, a nuclear-capable, long-range missile. This role earned her the moniker 'Agniputri' in the Indian media. Tessy Thomas says she was fascinated by science and mathematics, since she was in school. She went on to pursue a B.Tech from Thrissur Engineering College, Kozhikode and an M.Tech from Defence Institute of Advanced Technologies in Pune. After the M.Tech, she was selected by the DRDO for a guided weapons course.

Yamuna Krishnan

In 2013, Yamuna Krishnan became the youngest woman recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest award in Indian science. Her work focuses on fields related to structure and dynamics of nucleic acids, nucleic acid nanotechnology, and cellular & subcellular technologies. She was also awarded the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India in 2006.

Shubha Tole

Shubha Tole is a neuroscientist and the Principal Investigator at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Among the many awards she has received, is the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences for her work in understanding how the brain's structure and circuitry are formed in the embryo. Her work involves uncovering common genetic mechanisms that control the development of the hippocampus, cortex, and amygdala.

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay is a computer scientist who specialises in computational biology. In 2010, she won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Science for her work in the field of evolutionary computation, pattern recognition, machine learning, and bioinformatics. She has authored more than 145 journal papers and 140 articles, and has also edited journals on soft computing, data mining, and bioinformatics.

Mitali Mukerji

Mitali Mukerji's research is based in the field of genome variation and its effect on human phenotypes and susceptibility to diseases. She is involved in “Ayurgenomics,” a blend of Ayurveda and genomics. She has also been awarded the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2010 for her contribution to medical sciences.

Rama Govindarajan

Rama Govindarajan specialises in the field of fluid dynamics. She received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award for her “original contributions to the understanding of instabilities in shear and non-parallel flows, flow entrainment, turbulent transition and small-scale hydraulic jumps.” Rama Govindarajan has published many technical papers and books in the field of fluid physics.

Prerna Sharma

Prerna Sharma, a 29-year-old assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, was featured in the Forbes 30-under-30 India list this year. She is involved in the study of soft condensed matter physics. In her interview to Forbes , she said, that many women scientists didn't follow their dreams because of marriage, and stated, “There's a social bias; women make the most compromises. But gender should not be a factor when it comes to producing brilliant research.”

Neena Gupta

In May 2014, Neena Gupta received the prestigious Indian National Science Academy (Insa) award for solving a mathematical problem that was open for nearly 70 years known as the Zariski Cancellation Conjecture for affine spaces. Insa praised Neena Gupta's work as “one of the best works in Algebraic Geometry in recent years.”

These women are only a few of the several who are a vital part of the global science community. Their achievements in their respective fields have been nothing short of stellar, and they're not done yet.

Sir Tim Hunt, you were saying?

Feature image source: Dnaindia.com