INTEGRATED PROJECT

SCIENCE

WOMENS EXCELLED IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLGY

1. JANAKI AMMAL Janaki Ammal was an

Indian Botanist who conducted scientific

research in cytogentic and Phytogeography. Her most noticable work involves those

on sugarcane and the eggplant. She has collected various

valueable plants of medicinal and

economical value.

CHILDHOOD ---------

Janaki Ammal was born in 1897, in a Thiyya family, Tellichery, Kerala. Her father was Dewan Bahadur Edavalath Kakkat Krishnan, sub-judge of the Madras Presidency. She had six brothers and five sisters. In her family, girls were encouraged to engage in intellectual pursuits and in the fine arts, but Ammal chose to study botany. After schooling in Tellichery, she moved to Madras where she obtained the bachelor’s degree from Queen Mary’s College, and an honours degree in botany from Presidency College in 1921. Under the influence of teachers at the Presidency College, Ammal acquired a passion for cytogenetics.

EDUCATION--------- Ammal taught at Women’s Christian

College, Madras, with a sojourn as a Barbour Scholar at the University of Michigan in the USAwhere she obtained her master’s degree in 1925. Returning to India, she continued to teach at the Women's Christian College. She went to Michigan again as the first Oriental Barbour Fellow and obtained her D.Sc. in 1931. She returned as Professor of Botany at the Maharaja’s College of Science,Trivandrum, and taught there from 1932 to 1934. From 1934 to 1939 she worked as a geneticist at the Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore. From 1940 to 1945 she worked as Assistant Cytologist at the John Innes Horticultural Institution in London, and as cytologist at the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley from 1945 to 1951.

ACHIEVEMENTS------- During the years (1939–1950) she spent

in England, she did chromosome studies of a wide range of garden plants. Her studies on chromosome numbers and ploidy in many cases threw light on the evolution of species and varieties. The Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants which she wrote jointly with C. D. Darlington in 1945 was a compilation that incorporated much of her own work on many species. Ammal was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1935, and of the Indian National Science Academy in 1957. The University of Michigan conferred an honorary LL.D. on her in 1956. The Government of India conferred the Padmashri on her in 1957. In 2000, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the Government of India instituted the National Award of Taxonomy in her name in 2000.

2. KALPANA CHAWLA Kalpana Chawla (March

17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was born in Karnal,

India. She was the first Indian-

American astronaut and first Indian woman in space She first flew

on Space Shuttl Columbia in 1997 as a mission

specialist and primary robotic arm operator. In

2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle

Columbia disaster.

CHILDHOOD------- Kalpana Chawla was born in Karnal, India, in

1961, the youngest of the four children of Banarsi Lal Chawla and Sanjogta Kharbanda. Both of them had the childhood experience of fleeing their homes during the late 1940s when India was torn apart by the struggle between Hindus and Muslims following the country's independence from Britain on August 15, 1947. Chawla's father himself narrowly escaped with his life, and eventually settled with his extended family far away from their ancestral village. Kharbanda was the daughter of a doctor. Her father eventually established a successful tire manufacturing business.

EDUCATION-------- She completed her earlier schooling at Tagore

Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School, Karnal and completed her Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Punjab Engineering College at Chandigarh in 1982. She moved to the United States in 1982 where she obtained a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from theUniversity of Texas at Arlington in 1984. Determined to become an astronaut even in the face of the Challenger disaster, Chawla went on to earn a second Masters in 1986 and a PhD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

ACHIEVEMENTS--------- Posthumously awarded: Congressional Space Medal of Honor NASA Space Flight Medal NASA Distinguished Service Medal The Kalpana Chawla ISU Scholarship fund was

founded by alumni of the International Space University (ISU) in 2010 to support Indian student participation in international space education programs.

The Kalpana Chawla Memorial Scholarship program was instituted by the Indian Students Association (ISA) at the University of Texas at El Paso(UTEP) in 2005 for meritorious graduate students.

3. RAJESHWARI CHATTERJEE

Rajeshwari Chatterjee (24 January

1922 – 3 September 2010) was an Indian

scientist and an academic. She was the first woman engineer

from Karnataka. During her tenure at the Indian

Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore

, Chatterjee was a professor and later chairperson of the

department of Electro-communication

Engineering

CHILDHOOD-------- Chatterjee was born in 1922 in Karnataka.

She had her primary education in a "special English school" founded by her grandmother. After finishing her schooling she got admitted into Central College of Bangalore where she earned B.Sc (Hons) and M.Sc degrees in Mathematics. In both these exams she ranked first in the Mysore University. She received Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar Award and M.T. Narayana Iyengar Prize and the Walters Memorial Prize respectively for her performances in the B.Sc and M.Sc examinations.

EDUCATION--------- Chatterjee was born in 1922 in Karnataka. She

had her primary education in a "special English school" founded by her grandmother. After finishing her schooling she got admitted into Central College of Bangalore where she earned B.Sc (Hons) and M.Sc degrees in Mathematics.In both these exams she ranked first in the Mysore University. She received Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar Award and M.T. Narayana Iyengar Prize and the Walters Memorial Prize respectively for her performances in the B.Sc and M.Sc examinations.

ACHIEVEMENTS--------- For her contribution and works in the field of

Microwave engineering, she won many awards. Some of the notable awards and honours are

Mountbatten prize for the best paper from the Institute of Electrical and Radio Engineering (UK)

J.C Bose Memorial prize for the best research paper from the Institution of Engineers

Ramlal Wadhwa Award for the best research and teaching work from the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers.

4. RADHA BALKRISHNAN

She is a Fullbright Awardee, a Senior Associate of the ICTP, Trieste, and has received the Tamil Nadu Scientists Award, the Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Lecture Award (INSA) and a CNRS Visiting Professorship. She works at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai in the area of nonlinear dynamics and applications in physics.

CHILDHOOD--------

In 1957, when she was thirteen, she had just entered Std. IX in a co-educational school in New Delhi. The Delhi Board required a student to branch off into either the sciences or the humani- ties at that early stage. The science group was sought after because of better job prospects. Owing to the shortage of lab space, entry was restricted to students with marks above a cut-off.

EDUCATION-------- Radha pursued her Physics Honours from Delhi

University and finished her M.Sc in 1965. She has a Ph.D from Brandeis University where her thesis was one of the earliest studies of quantum crystals on the effects of helium four impurities in solid helium three. Radha is married to V. Balakrishnan who is an Indian theoretical physicist. They have two children - son, Hari Balakrishnan, is a renowned academic, currently the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science at MIT. Her daughter, Hamsa Balakrishnan, is also on the faculty at MIT as an assistant professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

ACHIEVEMENTS------- During the 1980s, when Radha returned to

India, she worked at the Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Madras as a Research Associate. She joined Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai in 1987. She retired in the year 2004 and since that time, Radha is continuing her research as a CSIR Emeritus Scientist. Her current research is on Nonlinear Dynamics, Solitons and Applications in Physics, Connections to Classical Differential Geometry. Radha received the Tamil Nadu Scientists Award in the Physical Sciences (1999) for her work.

MADE BY--- GROUP 3

HARDIKNIDHI

RUSHANKANKITPREETI

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