Dr. Tahani Amer

#53/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Tahani Amer discovered her natural passion and inclination for engineering while watching her father fixing his car’s engine as she sat inside her small Egyptian apartment. While her love of math created a clear path for a mechanical and aerospace engineering future, it was great teachers and her father that encouraged and guided Dr. Amer. In return, she spends a great deal of her time to inspire and challenge young women to reach their potential. Dr. Amer started working at NASA in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Branch. By working in this branch, she gained valuable experience and fulfilled her dream to work with scientists and researchers in solving real-life problems. She recalls, “It was a real privilege to work with state-of-the-art technology and with researchers who love their work.” Then, she landed an opportunity in one of NASA’s wind tunnels to conduct pressure and thermal sensitive paint experiments in support of the NASA’s aeronautical research efforts. This proved to be a valuable experience from both a theoretical and practical point of view. She has experienced the excitement of working with large CFD computer codes and climbing up the ceiling of a wind tunnel to install a velocity probe. Dr. Amer has invented and patented a system to measure the thermal conductivity of a thin film. This measurement is used in the thermal modeling of several techniques for determining boundary layer transition location on models being tested in wind tunnels. Dr. Amer holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, a master’s in aerospace engineering, and a doctoral of engineering from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Tahani Amer is an American Muslim NASA employee who grew up in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt. She had always strived to live by three simple principles: Please God and you will please all. Education is the key to opportunity. Serve others with compassion and kindness. She believd that if one thinks about these principles, it is very simple. You have general guidance about values and ethics from God and his books, self-determination by education, and a sense of social responsibility. She planned on going to medical school in Cairo, Egypt, but changed my major to engineering before starting college because of her life choices. She had gotten married at age 17 and moved to the United States.

Math was her favorite subject. She recognized early on that math provided an opportunity to find new methods for solving problems by using math models. When she came to the U.S. in 1983 and took her first calculus class, she could not speak a word in English, but she still achieved an A in the course. It was then that she knew an engineering career would be an awarding one. She obtained a two-year associate degree in science while taking care of two lovely children. Then, she went back to school to finish her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and went on to earn her master’s in aerospace engineering. Recently, she earned her doctoral in engineering.

She believes that NASA is a soft ‘pillow’ that allows you to dream of the impossible and then work hard to make it a reality. In 1992, during her senior year of college, she started working at NASA on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) project. By working on this project, she gained valuable experience and fulfilled her dream to work with scientists and researchers solving real-life problems! It was a privilege to work with state-of-the-art technology and with researchers who love their work. Then, she earned the opportunity to work in one of NASA’s wind tunnels to conduct pressure and thermal sensitive paint experiments for NASA’s Aeronautic Research efforts. This proved to be a valuable experience from both a theoretical and practical point of view. She experienced the excitement of working with large CFD computer codes and climbing up the ceiling of a wind tunnel to install a velocity probe. It was great; she felt like a little girl in the ‘candy store’ of NASA. Everything seemed possible. She believes that working at NASA is never boring. She invented and patented a system to measure the thermal conductivity of a thin film. This measurement is used in the thermal modeling of several techniques for determining boundary layer transition location on models being tested in wind tunnels. Currently, she contribute to NASA’s independent assessment process of the Agency’s Programs and Projects by working as a member of the Independent Program Assessment Office (IPAO), part of the Agency’s Office of Evaluation. She works very hard to skillfully execute my assignments and demonstrate managerial skills.

She strives to help and educate others by volunteering my time in community service through NASA programs, such as the “Day of Caring”, Engineering Week, the Speakers Bureau, Diversity Day, and after school science clubs. She spoke on the topic of Women in Islam during the Peace week at Old Dominion University in 2011, and was a guest speaker at the Annual Luncheon for the Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) to state representatives, university presidents, and new students. She also chaired the Applied Science Session for the VSGC and the IPAO NASA Program Management Challenge 2011. Her profile is included on one of the NASA Posters for outreach activity for Woman in Aerospace and in a college calculus book. She is also involved in mosque programs for teaching Islamic rules and Arabic to young children. After September 11, she contributed to her community in Hampton Roads, Va., by helping to educate and fill the gap that many Americans have in understanding the religion of Islam. She has given lectures in many churches, universities, and local school systems. She was even interviewed by the local newspaper on this topic. By living according to the aforementioned three principles, she tries to set a daily standard to challenge herself. In the same way, she challenges herself by her work with NASA, stretching her understanding and seeking to improve herself and others through helping NASA.

Source: https://women.nasa.gov/tahani-amer/

Deena Mehta

#52/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Source: Google image search

Deena Mehta, India's first female stockbroker, was a lone woman in a male-dominated industry who stayed the course, battling sexism along the way, to became the Bombay Stock Exchange's first female president.

Born on February 18, 1961, Deena is an Indian businesswoman, broker, investor, financial adviser, chartered accountant, and social activist. Deena completed her schooling from Mary Immaculate Girls' High School in Mumbai. She is a commerce graduate and a chartered accountant. She has completed a Post Graduate degree in Management Studies (Finance) from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and has also completed a Diploma in Stock Exchange studies from BSE Training Institute and a Post Graduate Diploma in Securities Law conducted by Government Law College, Mumbai.

Deena Mehta is married to Asit Mehta since 1984 and has two sons, Aditya and Aakash. Deena and Asit set up a Mumbai-based brokerage firm by the name of Nucleus Securities in 1986. This firm eventually became the Nucleus Group of Companies. Asit C. Mehta Investment Interrmediates Limited is a part of this Nucleus Group of Companies. "Our's is an arranged marriage, fixed by us. For, unlike the usual lovey-dovey couples, we did not go around. He has been my best teacher, philosopher and, guide. It was thanks to him that I became a broker in the first place,"she says, her voice getting a tad husky. Sixteen years ago, she created history once again, with her becoming the highest income-tax payee among Indian women. It seems, she knows as much finance as time-management, when she maintains that she always makes time for things she wants to do. She is a voracious reader of both fiction and non-fiction. Mills & Boons are her 'stress busters'. But unlike the characters in the mushy romantic novelettes, she has created history for herself on her own steam.

Deena Mehta was one of the first few woman members of Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai, was the first woman director on the board of the Bombay Stock Exchange, elected with the highest number of votes secured by any member in its history in 1997. She was Vice-President for two years and she eventually went on to be elected as the President of the Bombay Stock Exchange prior to corporatisation in 2001. That was a first in 125 years of the exchange's existence. Her tenure with the Bombay Stock Exchange lasted a total of 6 years from April 1996 to March 2002. She has rendered valuable services to the Exchange by serving as an active participant member on various committees. She is a member on various SEBI committees related to the Secondary Stock Market. In past, she has served as a Director on the Board of Central Depository Services (India) Limited, Cotton Association of India, National Payment Corporation of India and on the Board of BOI Shareholding Limited - a joint venture of BSE with Bank of India.

She is an Executive Member of South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE), a Federation of Stock Exchanges in SAARC Region. She is also a visiting faculty on "stock markets" at leading Institutes like IIM (Ahmedabad). She has vast experience in specific functional areas of Banking, Finance and Capital Markets. She is a Managing Director of Asit C.Mehta Investment Interrmediates Limited (Trading Member of the Exchange) since January, 1998. She was appointed as a Director on the Board on 7th August, 2009. 

Deena Mehta was awarded for outstanding contribution in the field of Banking and Financial services by Ladies Wing, Indian Merchant Chamber and as outstanding Young Indian in Business Category by Indian Jaycees in 1998. She was also honored by Cosmos Bank for outstanding contribution in the field of Finance in December, 2005. She was conferred the Exceptional Women Achiever Awards by FICCI in 2014. She actively supports investor education and awareness initiatives. 

Does she enjoy power? "It is quite a feeling, though I have never used it for myself," she maintains. What about the heady feeling of bossing over so many powerful people? "It is, as you said, heady," she agrees.

Source: Wikipedia and Google search.

R. Sivabhogam

#51/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

To adopt and conquer a profession, considered a male bastion in the times when women hardly had access to higher education, is a task of both immense courage and talent. R Sivabhogam lacked neither when she stepped out in pursuit of her dream.

R Sivabhogam, born on 23rd July, 1907 in India, was a professional accountant and the first woman Chartered Accountant of India. She had studied at the Lady Willingdon School in Triplicane where her thinking was deeply influenced by Sister R.S. Subbalakshmi, the pioneering reformer of widows’ lives. She then graduated from Queen Mary’s College and became an active freedom fighter, a satyagrahi. She was an active participant in the Youth League headed by Rukmini Lakshmipathy that served as a propaganda vehicle for the Congress in the 1920s. Later, when the women of Madras formed a Swadesi League, Sivabhogam became a member. The organisation, which was meant initially to teach Hindi, block printing on khadi and the popularising of nationalist songs soon became a vehicle for boycotting British goods and picketing of liquor shops. The members also sold swadesi products at public meetings. Sivabhogam took part in all of these activities. She, along with her compatriots that included formidable personalities like Krishnabai Nimbkar, Ambujammal and her aunt Janammal, the multi-faceted Vai Mu Kothainayaki and Margaret Cousins, were all sentenced to a year’s imprisonment at Vellore gaol. She was imprisoned in 1931 and it was while there that Sivabhogam decided on her career — she would become an auditor.

After her release Sivabhogam registered for Government Diploma in Accountancy (GDA). She was successful in the GDA exam, becoming in 1933 India’s first woman accountant. She enrolled as an articled assistant with C.S. Sastry an auditor, whose firm of Sastri & Shah still functions from Armenian Street. Having completed her tenure there she planned to set up an independent practice only to be thwarted by a legislation that disallowed those who had undergone a prison sentence from registering themselves as accountants. But Sivabhogam was not one to give up. She filed a writ questioning the logic behind such an Act and pursued the case tenaciously. The verdict was in her favour and she was allowed to set up her independent practice.

Shivabhogam started her independent practice in 1937 and was also a part-time assistant with M/s. Sastri and Shah. On the formation of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in 1949 Sivabhogam was enrolled as a member and became a fellow on 17th June, 1950. Sivabhogam became the Chairperson of the Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (the then Madras Council). She is the only woman so far to have held this position, for a continuous period of three years from 1955 to 1958. It was during this period that she instituted an award for the best lady candidate in the CA examinations. The R. Sivabhogam Prize continues to be awarded year after year. She was also a senate member of the University of Madras.

Sivabhogam had been very active in social service and primarily for the cause of women’s education. She was a believer in Gandhian principles. Having been rejected from marriage proposals due to a physical disability, she decided not to get married at all. Remaining single, wearing only khadi and travelling everywhere by bus, Sivabhogam chose to take up the audit of several social welfare organisations in particular. This feisty lady passed away on 14th June, 1966. 

Women auditors are now in plenty but in many ways it was because of what Sivabhogam decided to do, while imprisoned in a cell in Vellore. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.

Shanti Devi

#50/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

I am completing the half-century of this pact on International Women’s Day today and yet it is completely coincidental. So, I share today the story of a very ordinary woman who is absolutely extraordinary though, much like all of us.

In Asia's largest truck halt point - Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar (SGTN) - lies a small tea shop, alongside which is an automobile workshop. Shanti Devi, a 55-year-old woman is the one who co-owns both the shops with her husband. Working about 12 hours a day, she is one of the mechanics for the trucks that pile outside their workshop waiting to get a puncture fixed. Shanti Devi is the very first truck mechanic in India and has been working for over 20 years now! "I learnt all about automobiles and changing tyres by watching my husband and other mechanics while they were working. Today, I know that I am a better mechanic than many men and prove it through my work every day. I believe a woman can do any job if she has a passion for it. Men still look at me with surprise and interest as I go about my job." 

Originally from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh Shanti Devi now resides at Delhi, in a “50 Gaj” house made by her and her husband. Along with her husband – Ram Bahadur she works at Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar Depot as a truck mechanic. Both in their mid fifty, they first started a tea stall for their livelihood. Unable to meet ends, Ram started working as a truck mechanic, repairing tyres, changing tyres and fixing punctures. This is Shanti Devi’s second marriage and they have eight children. To feed the family she joined the works of repairing and fixing tyres. She did not take any formal training on this but just by seeing her husband and other workers learned all this.

On the first instance she seems to be a saree clad, simple village woman, but when she starts operating with heavy tools and tyres weighing almost 50kg, it seems that she is a specialist in it. When she started this “man dominated” job nobody believed that she will be able to continue. SGTN is spread over an area of more than 75 acres and is reportedly the largest trucking stopover point in Asia. Over 70,000 trucks are parked here at any given time and around 20,000 trucks pass by every day. After so many years, and so much media attention now, she’s been taken seriously and their workshop gets good customers.

Despite her proficiency, there are times when she is not considered good enough for the job. Drivers often hesitate in trusting her, but her work dispels all their doubts. “They believe that I will not be able to do it. Some even offer to lend a helping hand. When they see that I am quite capable at lifting and moving heavy tyres with ease on my own, they give me a reassuring, although perhaps slightly sheepish smile. I have earned their respect and have developed a healthy relationship with regular customers,” she says. 

Born to poor parents in Madhya Pradesh, Shanti Devi had always taken up odd jobs to support herself and her family. So, being recognised as India's only female truck mechanic is a matter of pride for her. She claims that her husband is very friendly with her and they work cordially to earn their family’s livelihood. Though she has a feminine heart, she loves wearing Saree and matching blouse, glass bangles and loves to put nail polish as well, but she is a tough lady and has that mettle. This toughness has given her the name and fame and off course added the source of income. "I love my job. It's hard, but I'd be bored if I sat at home and did nothing," Shanti explained in an interview with Gulf News. "Looking back, I can say that it has been an absolutely worthwhile experience. It does not bother me when people say that I must be one of the only female truck mechanics in India - I am proud of this," she added.

To choose this career was her own choice, so that she could be a breadwinner for her family. But this unique choice of hers has made her win tonnes of appreciation from across the country. Females like Shanti Devi are an inspiration and are the “torch bearers”. They tell us that anything and everything is possible irrespective of gender. Society has to accept this fact and, as individuals, one need to take this responsibility to make a change.

Source: Google search

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

#49/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneer of the biotechnology industry in India and the founder of the country’s leading biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. Named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is recognized as a thought leader who has made her country proud by building a globally recognized biopharmaceutical enterprise that is committed to innovation and affordability in delivering best-in-class therapeutics to patients across the globe. As a global influencer, she is ranked among ‘World's 25 Most Influential People in Biopharma’ by Fierce Biotech, Forbes magazine’s ‘100 Most Powerful Women’ and Fortune’s ‘Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Asia-Pacific.’ More recently, she was featured in ‘The Worldview 100 List’ of the most influential visionaries by Scientific American magazine and named among the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine. She was ranked second among the 100 Most Influential People in the field of medicine in the ‘Global Medicine Maker Power List 2015’ published by a top UK-based medical publication.

Kiran was born to Gujarati parents in Bangalore, India. She went to school at Bangalore's Bishop Cotton Girl's High School, graduating in 1968. She then attended Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, a women's college offering pre-university courses as an affiliate of Bangalore University. She studied biology and zoology, graduating from Bangalore University with a bachelor's degree in Zoology in 1973. Kiran hoped to go to medical school, but did not obtain a scholarship. Her father, Rasendra Mazumdar, was the head brewmaster at United Breweries. He suggested that she study fermentation science, and train to be a brewmaster, a very non-traditional field for a woman. She went to Federation University (Formerly known as University of Ballarat) in Australia to study Malting and Brewing. In 1974 she was the only woman enrolled in the brewing course, and the top of her class. She earned the degree of master brewer in 1975. She then worked as a trainee brewer in Carlton and United Breweries, Melbourne and as a trainee maltster at Barrett Brothers and Burston, Australia. She also worked for some time as a technical consultant at Jupiter Breweries Limited, Calcutta and as a technical manager at Standard Maltings Corporation, Baroda between 1975 and 1977. However, when she investigated the possibility of further work in Bangalore or Delhi, she was told that she would not be hired as a master brewer in India because "It's a man's work." She began to look abroad, and was offered a position in Scotland.

Before Kiran could move, she met Leslie Auchincloss, founder of Biocon Biochemicals Limited, of Cork, Ireland. Auchincloss's company produced enzymes for use in the brewing, food-packaging and textile industries. Auchincloss was looking for an Indian entrepreneur to help establish an Indian subsidiary. Kiran agreed to undertake the job on the condition that if she did not wish to continue after six months she would be guaranteed a brewmaster's position comparable to the one she was giving up. 

After a brief period as a trainee manager at Biocon Biochemicals Limited, of Cork, Ireland, to learn more about the business, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw returned to India. She started Biocon India in 1978 in the garage of her rented house in Bengaluru with a seed capital of Rs. 10,000. Although it was a joint venture, Indian laws restricted foreign ownership to 30% of the company. The remaining 70% belonged to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

Initially, she faced credibility challenges because of her youth, gender and her untested business model. Funding was a problem: no bank wanted to lend to her, and some requested that her father be a guarantor. A chance meeting with a banker at a social event finally enabled her to get her first financial backing. She also found it difficult to recruit people to work for her start-up. Her first employee was a retired garage mechanic. Her first factory was in a nearby 3,000-square-foot shed. The most complicated piece of equipment in her lab at that time was a spectrophotometer. As well, she faced the technological challenges associated with trying to build a biotech business in a country with a shaky infrastructure. Uninterrupted power, superior quality water, sterile labs, imported research equipment, and workers with advanced scientific skills were not easily available in India at the time. The company's initial projects were the extraction of papain (an enzyme from papaya used to tenderize meat) and isinglass (obtained from tropical catfish and used to clarify beer). Within a year of its inception, Biocon India was able to manufacture enzymes and to export them to the US and Europe, the first Indian company to do so. At the end of her first year, Kiran used her earnings to buy a 20-acre property, dreaming of future expansion.

Kiran spearheaded Biocon's evolution from an industrial enzymes manufacturing company to a fully integrated bio-pharmaceutical company with a well-balanced business portfolio of products and a research focus on diabetes, oncology and auto-immune diseases. She also established two subsidiaries: Syngene (1994) which provides early research and development support services on a contract basis and Clinigene (2000) which focuses on clinical research trials and the development of both generic and new medicines. Clinigene was later merged with Syngene. Syngene was listed on BSE/NSE in 2015 and has a current market cap of US$1.15 billion.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is responsible for establishing Biocon's direction. As early as 1984, she began to develop a research and development team at Biocon, focusing on discovery of novel enzymes and on development of novel techniques for solid substrate fermentation technology. The company's first major expansion came in 1987, when Narayanan Vaghul of ICICI Ventures (Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India) supported creation of a venture capital fund of US$250,000. The money enabled Biocon to expand its research and development efforts. They built a new plant featuring proprietary solid substrate fermentation technology based on a semi-automated tray culture process, inspired by Japanese techniques. In 1989, Biocon became the first Indian biotech company to receive US funding for proprietary technologies. Thereafter, in 1990, Kiran incorporated Biocon Biopharmaceuticals Private Limited (BBLP) to manufacture and market a select range of biotherapeutics in a joint venture with the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology.

Biocon Biochemicals of Ireland was acquired from Leslie Auchincloss by Unilever in 1989. The partnership with Unilever helped Biocon to establish global best practices and quality systems. In 1997, Unilever sold its specialty chemicals division, including Biocon, to Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). In 1998, Kiran Mazumdar's fiancée, Scotsman John Shaw, personally raised $2 million to purchase the outstanding Biocon shares from ICI. The couple married in 1998, whereupon she became known as Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. John Shaw left his position as chairman at Madura Coats to join Biocon. He became Biocon’s vice chairman in 2001.

There is reverence in her voice when she talks about her father, whose ashes rest under the almond tree outside her office. She describes his role in her success. At a time when fathers did not take their daughters' intellect very seriously, Mazumdar-Shaw says hers told her: "I want you to use your knowledge to do something meaningful." While the 25-year-old Mazumdar-Shaw was setting up Biocon, her friends were getting married. It was her father who encouraged her to stay the course. "When I started the company, my father was so excited for me," she says, her eyes moistening. Her father taught her that people were the most valuable asset in business. She says: "My dad always said, 'Treat them with respect. Everyone has something to contribute.'" Her ground-level office on Biocon's leafy campus has a relaxed, informal feel, and her door is always open. Her staff is fiercely protective of her. Her vision for the company has evolved from the goal of improving India's scientific record to the dream of "a made-in-India novel drug". When she talks about Biocon's plans to take insulins global and move from cancer care to cancer cure, her enthusiasm seems almost childlike. Behind many dreams that come true, there is a choice that many might quail at. "I got married only at 44," says Mazumdar-Shaw. "My work was so important that I didn't even think about having a family. I miss having a child. But that's a sacrifice." She says she is happy with all that she has achieved. "I have made discoveries about myself, and have learnt to get ordinary people to do extraordinary things," she adds.

Kiran's belief in "affordable innovation" has been a driving philosophy behind Biocon's expansion. Inspired by the need for affordable drugs in less-wealthy countries, she has looked for opportunities to develop cost-effective techniques and lower-cost alternatives. She has also proposed that drug companies be cost-sensitive in marketing to developing countries, so that people can afford the drugs they need, particularly chronic therapies. She noticed the market potential for statins (cholesterol fighting drugs) early on. When the patent of the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin expired in 2001, Biocon got involved in its development. Then they expanded to other forms of statins. Part of her strategy was to enter into long-term supply contracts, establishing a dependable market base over time. Statins soon accounted for over 50 per cent of the company's revenue. The company’s revenue went up from Rs. 70 crore in 1998, to Rs. 500 crore in 2004 when it went public. In 2004, after seeking the advice of Narayana Murthy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw decided to list Biocon on the stock market. Her intent was to raise capital to further develop Biocon's research programs. Biocon was the first biotechnology company in India to issue an IPO. Biocon's IPO was oversubscribed 33 times and its first day at the bourses closed with a market value of $1.11 billion, making Biocon only the second Indian company to cross the $1-billion mark on the first day of listing.

Biocon continues to expand into new areas. Yeast expression platforms offer a desirable alternative to mammalian cell cultures for the genetic manipulation of cells for use in a variety of drug treatments. Unicellular methylotrophic yeasts such as Pichia pastoris are used in the production of vaccines, antibody fragments, hormones, cytokines, matrix proteins, and biosimilars. Biocon's major areas of research now include cancer, diabetes, and other auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Because of the high percentage of people in India who chew betel or tobacco, India accounts for eighty-six per cent of oral cancer in the world, known locally as "cancer cheek". Diabetes is prevalent, and people who do not wear shoes are at risk to have a minor scrape or injury develop into gangrene, or "diabetes foot". Biocon is also working on drugs to treat psoriasis, a skin pigment disease which can result in social ostracization. Bio-pharmaceuticals developed include Pichia-derived recombinant human insulin and insulin analogs for diabetes, an Anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody for head and neck cancer, and a biologic for psoriasis. Biocon is Asia's largest insulin producer, and has the largest perfusion-based antibody production facilities. As of 2014, Biocon directed about 10% of its revenue back into research and development, a much higher proportion than most Indian pharmacological companies. Biocon has filed at least 950 patent applications as a result of its research activity. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has actively engaged in acquisitions, partnerships and in-licensing within the pharmaceuticals and bio-pharmaceutical area, entering into more than 2,200 high-value R&D licensing and other deals between 2005 and 2010.

Her rich contributions to research, innovation and affordable healthcare have been recognized by several national and international awards. The U.S.-based Chemical Heritage Foundation has conferred her with the ‘2014 Othmer Gold Medal’ and the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy has awarded her its coveted ‘2014 Global Economy Prize’ for Business. She has received two of India's highest civilian honours, the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005). Other prominent awards include, Ernst & Young Best Entrepreneur: Healthcare & Life Sciences Award (2002), The Economic Times Business Woman of the Year Award (2004) and Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2009).

Among the influences in her life, she counts Vaghul, the banker who thought differently; Raghunath Mashelkar, promoter of science and technology in India; and cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty, architect of the world's cheapest health insurance scheme.

Her work in the biotechnology sector has earned her numerous national awards as well, including the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005) from the government of India. She was given the Economic Times Award for 'Businesswoman of the Year' in 2004. At the Pharmaleaders Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit she was named "Global Indian Woman of the Year" (2012); she also received the Express Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit Award for "Dynamic Entrepreneur" in 2009. The Indian Merchants' Chamber Diamond Jubilee Endowment Trust's Eminent Businessperson of the Year Award was presented to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw in 2006 by the Governor of Maharashtra, S. M. Krishna. She also has received the Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award (2005), the 'Corporate Leadership Award' by the American India Foundation (2005) and the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award (2002).

Kiran received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Ballarat University in 2004, in recognition of her contributions to biotechnology. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Abertay, Dundee, UK (2007), the University of Glasgow, UK (2008), Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK (2008) and University College Cork, Ireland (2012). She received an honorary doctorate from Davangere University, India, at its first convocation, July 2013, in recognition of her contribution in the field of biotechnology.

Kiran also holds key positions in various industry, educational, government and professional bodies. She is Non-Executive Chairperson of the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), a not-for-profit pan-India forum representing the Indian biotechnology sector. She is a founder member of Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology, which she currently chairs. She serves as a member of the Governing Body of the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission and has previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the U.S. Pharmacopeia Convention. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and has recently been appointed as Global Alumni Ambassador for Australia by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia. She is also on the board of advisors for The National Society of High School Scholars, US and is a founder member of the Society for the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bangalore. She serves as Independent Member of the Board of Infosys Ltd and features on the Global Advisory Committee for the Women and the Green Economy Campaign (WAGE)™ initiative. She is also the Honorary Consul of Ireland in Bangalore.

Kiran’s commitment to affordable healthcare extends beyond business. Her philanthropic initiatives are directed at making a difference to the lives of the marginalized communities. In 2004, Mazumdar-Shaw started a corporate social responsibility wing at Biocon, the Biocon Foundation. The Foundation focuses on the areas of health, education and infrastructure, especially in rural areas of Karnataka which lack healthcare facilities. Through Biocon Foundation’s primary healthcare centres, telemedicine initiatives, health awareness programs, public health and sanitation initiatives and preventive screenings for oral and cervical cancer, she is making an enduring impact on society. She has also established the 1,400-bed Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center in Bangalore to deliver affordable world-class cancer care services to patients irrespective of socio-economic status. She has also set up the Mazumdar-Shaw Center for Translational Research, a non-profit research institute dedicated to developing scientific breakthroughs for treating a wide range of human diseases. Her philanthropic efforts have led her to be featured in the Forbes’ List of ‘Heroes of Philanthropy’. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is also the second Indian to join the Giving Pledge global initiative created by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates that encourages billionaires to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Kiran dislikes the term "philanthropy", believing that it often provides temporary fixes rather than changing underlying conditions. She prefers the term "compassionate capitalist", believing that properly applied business models can provide an ongoing foundation for sustainable social progress. "Innovation and commerce are as powerful tools for creating social progress as they are for driving technological advancement... when they are put to use for social progress, the implementation is a lot cheaper, a lot more people benefit, and the effect is more lasting." In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthropy.

If Kiran would have succeeded at becoming a brewmaster, Biocon would probably not exist. But in the 1970s, brewing was a male-dominated industry, and she could not get a job. She says: "The words were: 'You're a woman. It is difficult for a woman to deal with labour unions. You are high-risk. Can you command the respect of your male colleagues?'" Today, things have changed drastically. "It is interesting to see how the people who said, 'I have 15 minutes for you' are in awe of me.'" Kiran, who is one of India's richest women, says she is a self-taught entrepreneur. It takes originality and a strong will for a woman to first study brewing, and then to turn to a nascent industry when hurdles in the brewery business prove insurmountable. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, it seems, has plenty of both. As someone who made unconventional choices - brewmaster, biotechnology pioneer, to personal life choices (she married at 44) - she says she admires people who dare to do things differently.

Source: Wikipedia and Google search

Amrita Sher-Gil

#48/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Amrita Sher-Gil and her self portrait

One of the most promising Indian artists of the pre-colonial era; youngest ever and the only Asian to be elected as Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris, Amrita Sher-Gil was a renowned Indian painter. She was one of the most charismatic and promising Indian artists of the pre-colonial era. Most of her paintings reflect vividly her love for the country and more importantly her response to the life of its people.

Sometimes known as India’s Frida Kahlo, Amrita Sher-Gil was born on 30 January, 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and a scholar in Sanskrit and Persian, and Marie Antoniette Gottesmann, a Hungarian-Jewish opera singer. Her mother came to India as a companion of Princess Bamba Sutherland the granddaughter of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Amrita was the elder of two daughters born. She spent most of early childhood in Budapest. She was the niece of Indologist Ervin Baktay who guided her by critiquing her work and gave her an academic foundation to grow on. He also instructed her to use servants as models. The memories of these models would eventually lead to her return to India. In 1921, her family moved to Summer Hill, Shimla in India, and soon began learning piano and violin, and by age nine she along with her younger sister, Indira, were giving concerts and acting in plays at Shimla’s Gaiety Theatre at Mall Road, Shimla. Though she was already painting since the age of five she formally started learning painting at age eight. In 1923, Marie came to know an Italian sculptor, who was living at Shimla at the time. In 1924, when he returned to Italy, she too moved there along with Amrita and got her enrolled at Santa Annunziata, an art school at Florence. Though Amrita didn’t stay at this school for long, and returned to India in 1924, it was here that she was exposed to works of Italian masters.

At sixteen, Amrita sailed to Europe with her mother to train as a painter at Paris, first at the Grande Chaumiere under Pierre Vaillant and Lucien Simon and later at École des Beaux-Arts (1930–34). She drew inspiration from European painters such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin while coming under the influence of her teacher Lucien Simon and the company of artist friends and lovers like Boris Tazlitsky. Her early paintings display a significant influence of the Western modes of painting, especially as practiced in the Bohemian circles of Paris in the early 1930s. In 1932, she made her first important work, ‘Young Girls’, which led to her election as an Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris in 1933, making her the youngest ever and the only Asian to have received this recognition.

In 1934, while in Europe she began to be haunted by an intense longing to return to India, feeling in some strange way that there lay her destiny as a painter. She began a quest for the rediscovery of the traditions of Indian art which was to continue till her death. In May 1935, in Shimla, Amrita met the English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, then working as Assistant Editor and leader writer for the Calcutta Statesman. Both Malcolm and Amrita stayed at the family home at Summer Hill, Shimla and a short intense affair took place during which she painted a casual portrait of her new lover. The painting now rests with the National Gallery in New Delhi. By September 1935, Amrita was seeing Muggeridge off as he travelled back to England for new employment, the parting timely and no doubt of relief to them both. She left for travel herself in 1936 at the behest of an art collector and critic, Karl Khandalavala, who encouraged her to pursue her passion for discovering her Indian roots. She was greatly impressed and influenced by the Mughal and Pahari schools of painting and the cave paintings at Ajanta.

Later in 1937, she toured South India and produced the famous South Indian trilogy of paintings ‘Bride’s Toilet’, ‘Brahmacharis’, and ‘South Indian Villagers Going to Market’ following her visit to the Ajanta caves, when she made a conscious attempt to return to classical Indian art. These paintings reveal her passionate sense of colour and an equally passionate empathy for her Indian subjects, who are often depicted in their poverty and despair. Amrita showed a strong empathy and deep engagement for her Indian subjects and depicted the poverty which blighted much of the country. These three works especially are believed to be a few of her seminal works which convey her compassion for the underprivileged. Influenced by her surroundings and experiences, her paintings are carved out with eloquent symbols of the human condition, and it is clear that her artistic mission was to express the lives of Indian people through her vivid paintings. This marked a significant point in her artistic development where she engaged with the rhythms of rural life in India, appropriating a way of life which was antithetical to her own. 

By 1939, she was living a bohemian life, which her parents did not approve of. They wanted her to settle down and lead a normal family life. There was no dearth of suitors, but understanding her own nature, Amrita married her maternal cousin Victor Egan in 1938, who accepted her as she was. She moved with him to India to stay at her paternal family’s home in Saraya in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. Saraya inspired her to break her umbilical connection with the West. While in Saraya she wrote to a friend thus: "I can only paint in India. Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque.... India belongs only to me". Her stay in India marks the beginning of a new phase in her artistic development, one that was distinct from the European phase of the interwar years when her work showed an engagement with the works of Hungarian painters, especially the Nagybanya school of painting. Thus began her second phase of painting which equals in its impact on Indian art with the likes of Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy of the Bengal school of art. The ‘Calcutta Group’ of artists, which transformed the Indian art scene in a big way, was to start only in 1943, and the ‘Progressive Artist’s Group’, with Francis Newton Souza, Ara, Bakre, Gade, M. F. Husain and S. H. Raza among its founders, lay further ahead in 1948. Amrita’s art was strongly influenced by the paintings of the two Tagores, Rabindranath and Abanindranath, who were the pioneers of the Bengal School of painting. Her portraits of women resemble works by Rabindranath while the use of ‘chiaroscuro’ and bright colours reflect the influence of Abanindranath.

It was during her stay at Saraya that she painted the ‘Village Scene’, ‘In the Ladies’ Enclosure’ and ‘Siesta’, all of which portray the leisurely rhythms of life in rural India. ‘Siesta’ and ‘In the Ladies’ Enclosure’ reflect her experimentation with the miniature school of painting while ‘Village Scene’ reflects influences of the Pahari school of painting. Although acclaimed by art critics, Karl Khandalavala in Bombay and Charles Fabri in Lahore, as the greatest painter of the century, Amrita’s paintings found few buyers during her time. She travelled across India with her paintings but the Nawab Salar Jung of Hyderabad returned them and the Maharaja of Mysore chose Ravi Varma’s paintings over hers. While the Bengal school was trying to generally have a romantic revival of India’s cultural heritage and the Bombay school was imitating the West, Amrita dared to break away from the rut and paint the real India in body and soul.

Despite being from a family that was closely tied to the British Raj, Amrita herself was a Congress sympathiser. She was attracted to the poor, distressed and the deprived and her paintings of Indian villagers and women are a meditative reflection of their condition. She was also attracted by Gandhi’s philosophy and lifestyle. Nehru was charmed by her beauty and talent and when he went to Gorakhpur in October 1940, he visited her at Saraya. Her paintings were at one stage even considered for use in the Congress propaganda for village reconstruction.

In September 1941, Victor and Amrita moved to Lahore, then in undivided India and a major cultural and artistic centre. She lived and painted at 23 Ganga Ram Mansions, The Mall, Lahore where her studio was on the top floor of the townhouse she inhabited. Amrita was known for her many affairs with both men and women and many of the latter she also painted. Her work ‘Two Women’ is thought to be a painting of herself and her lover Marie Louise. In 1941, just days before the opening of her first major solo show in Lahore, she became seriously ill and slipped into a coma. She later died around midnight on 6 December, 1941, leaving behind a large volume of work. The reason for her death has never been ascertained. A failed abortion and subsequent peritonitis have been suggested as possible causes for her death. Her mother accused her doctor husband Victor of having murdered her. However, the day after her death Britain declared war on Hungary and Victor was sent to jail as a national enemy. She was cremated on 7 December, 1941 at Lahore. Amrita Sher-Gil entered India’s cultural horizon like a shooting star, blazing a trail of gorgeous radiance, and vanished before the spectacle could be celebrated. As she was in life, so she was in death: an enigma.

Although her life was short-lived, Amrita has left a compelling body of work behind, and these works have established her as one of the foremost female artists of the century. Her art has influenced generations of Indian artists from Sayed Haider Raza to Arpita Singh and her depiction of the plight of women has made her art a beacon for women at large both in India and abroad. The Government of India has declared her works as National Art Treasures, and most of them are housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. A postage stamp depicting her painting ‘Hill Women’ was released in 1978 by India Post and the Amrita Sher-Gill Marg is a road in Lutyens’ Delhi named after her. In 2006, her painting ‘Village Scene’ sold for Rs. 6.9 crores at an auction in New Delhi which was at the time the highest amount ever paid for a painting in India. Besides remaining an inspiration to many a contemporary Indian artists, in 1993, she also became the inspiration behind, the famous Urdu play, by Javed Siddiqi, ‘Tumhari Amrita’ (1992), starring Shabana Azmi and Farooq Shaikh. Her work is a key theme in the contemporary Indian novel “Faking It” by Amrita Chowdhury. Aurora Zogoiby, a character in Salman Rushdie’s 1995 novel, “The Moor’s Last Sigh”, was inspired by Amrita Sher-Gil.

Despite her short career as an artist, Amrita Sher-Gil remains one of the most captivating, curious and alluring artists of her time. With such a precocious talent for painting and a unique post-impressionist style, her development of subjectivity through self-portraits and struggle for artistic identity, will continue to ignite contemporary interest. As an eminent Indian painter, her importance as a pioneer of the modern movement will remain in posterity for years to come. Being a woman who came from an affluent and upper-middle class strata, she encouraged a spirit of defiance against social norms and encouraged women to play a more prominent role within the field of art. She is today considered an important woman painter of 20th-century India, whose legacy stands on a par with that of the ‘Masters of Bengal Renaissance’. She is also the “most expensive” woman painter of India. 

Source: Wikipedia and Google search.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

#47/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

It feels great when a friend reads something somewhere and remembers that it’s something you are following and forwards you a reference. It was a friend who suggested to me to read about Cecilia and I cannot be thankful enough.

Back when scientists believed that the sun is made out of heavy elements, a 25 year old student wrote a brilliant and revolutionary doctor's dissertation proving everyone wrong. It was the bright and talented Cecilia Payne, a British - American astronomer and astrophysicist who, in 1925, proposed in her PhD thesis an explanation for the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born in England. She is one of the few women that have successfully blazed into male dominated scientific community. Cecilia is one of the world’s most accomplished and successful astrologists. Her career in astrology helped many other women pursue a career in science. Her greatest achievement, however, is often overlooked as she was never given the proper credit for the same. Cecilia Payne managed to discover what the Sun was made of, as well as what other stars are made of. However, she was “robbed” of her achievement.

Cecilia Helena Payne was born on May 10, 1900 in Wendover, England. She was one of three children born to Emma Leonora Helena (née Pertz) and Edward John Payne, a London barrister, historian and accomplished musician. Cecilia's father died when she was four years old, forcing her mother to raise the family on her own.

She attended St Paul's Girls' School. In 1919, she won a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge University, where she read botany, physics, and chemistry. Here, she attended a lecture by Arthur Eddington on his 1919 expedition to the island of Principe in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa to observe and photograph the stars near a solar eclipse as a test of Einstein's general theory of relativity. This sparked her interest in astronomy. At one open night for the public, Cecilia asked so many quality questions, that the staff of the university nicknamed her “The Professor”. She approached professor Eddington and told him she wants to be an astronomer and pursue a career in astrology. He invited her to use the observatory at the university, a move that opened many doors for her. She completed her studies, but was not awarded a degree because of her sex as Cambridge did not grant degrees to women until 1948.

Eddington encouraged her ambition, but she felt there were more opportunities for a woman to work in astronomy in the United States than in Britain, as the country was very strict towards woman in science. She realized that her only career option in the U.K. was to become a teacher, so she looked for grants that would enable her to move to the United States. After being introduced to Harlow Shapley, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory, who had just begun a graduate program in astronomy, she left England in 1923. This was made possible by a fellowship to encourage women to study at the observatory. The first student on the fellowship was Adelaide Ames (1922) and the second was Cecilia Payne. So, she moved to the United States and it was at Harvard that she achieved her greater success and flourished as an astronomer.

Beginning in the 1880s, astronomers at Harvard College such as Edward Pickering, Annie Jump Cannon, Williamina Fleming, and Antonia Maury had succeeded in classifying stars according to their spectra into seven types: O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. It was believed that this sequence corresponded to the surface temperature of the stars, with O being the hottest and M the coolest. In her PhD thesis (published as Stellar Atmospheres in 1925), Cecilia used the spectral lines of many different elements and the work of Indian astrophysicist Meghnad Saha, who had discovered an equation relating the ionization states of an element in a star to the temperature to definitively establish that the spectral sequence did correspond to quantifiable stellar temperatures. She also determined that stars are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. However, she was dissuaded from this conclusion by astronomer Henry Norris Russell, who thought that stars would have the same composition as Earth. (Russell conceded in 1929 that Cecilia Payne was correct.) Cecilia received the first PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College for her thesis, since Harvard did not grant doctoral degrees to women. Astronomers Otto Struve and Velta Zebergs later called her thesis “undoubtedly the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.”

Cecilia remained at Harvard as a technical assistant to Shapley after completing her doctorate. Shapley had her discontinue her work with stellar spectra and encouraged her instead to work on photometry of stars by using photographic plates, even though more accurate brightness measurements could be made by using recently introduced photoelectric instruments. She later wrote, “I wasted much time on this account.…My change in field made the end of the decade a sad one.” During this period, however, she was able to continue her stellar spectral work with a second book, Stars of High Luminosity (1930), which paid particular attention to Cepheid variables and marked the beginning of her interest in variable stars and novae. In her career, Cecilia has surveyed all the stars that are brighter than the tenth magnitude. She has made more than 1,250,000 observations.

According to G. Kass-Simon and Patricia Farnes, Cecilia Payne's career marked a turning point at Harvard College Observatory. Under the direction of Harlow Shapley and Dr E. J. Sheridan (whom she has described as a mentor), the observatory had already offered more opportunities in astronomy to women than any other institution, and notable achievements had been made earlier in the century by Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, Annie Jump Cannon, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt. However, with Cecilia's PhD, women entered the ‘mainstream’. The trail she blazed into the largely male-dominated scientific community was an inspiration to many. For example, she became a role model for noted astrophysicist Joan Feynman. Joan's mother and grandmother had dissuaded her from pursuing science, since they believed women were not physically capable of understanding scientific concepts. But Joan was later inspired by Cecilia when she came across some of her work in an astronomy textbook. Seeing her research published in this way convinced Joan Feynman that she could, in fact, follow her scientific passions.

In 1933, Cecilia travelled to Europe to meet Russian astronomer Boris Gerasimovich, who had previously worked at the Harvard College Observatory and with whom she planned to write a book about variable stars. In Göttingen, Germany, she met Sergey Gaposchkin, a Russian astronomer who could not return to the Soviet Union because of his politics. She was able to find a position at Harvard for him. They married in 1934 and often collaborated on studies of variable stars. They settled in the historic town of Lexington, Massachusetts, a short commute from Harvard. They had three children, Edward, Katherine, and Peter. Her daughter remembers her as “an inspired seamstress, an inventive knitter, and a voracious reader.” She was named a lecturer in astronomy in 1938, but even though she taught courses, they were not listed in the Harvard catalogue until after World War II.

In 1956, Cecilia Payne was appointed a full professor at Harvard and became the first woman to be promoted to a full time professor at Harvard’s faculty of Arts and Science. She was later appointed to Chair of the Department of Astronomy, making her the first woman with a department at Harvard. Some of her more prominent students included Frank Drake, Helen Hogg, Paul W. Hodge and Joseph Ashbrook. All of them made significant contributions to the field of astronomy. She retired from teaching in 1966, but continued her research as a member of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She also wrote an autobiography, The Dyer’s Hand, that was posthumously collected in Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (1984). Her other printed works include academic books, namely, The Stars of High Luminosity (1930), Variable Stars (1938), Variable Stars and Galactic Structure (1954), Introduction to Astronomy (1956) and The Galactic Novae (1957). She passed away on December 7, 1979.

During her illustrious lifetime, she won numerous awards, like, the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1934 of which she was the first recipient; the award of Merit from Radcliffe College in 1952; and the Rittenhouse Medal from the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society at the Franklin Institute in 1961. She became an elected member of Royal Astronomical Society while still a student at Cambridge in 1923; a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1936; a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943; an Emeritus Professor of Harvard University in 1967; and also won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1976. She was awarded many honorary degrees from Rutgers University, Wilson College, Smith College, Western College, Colby College, and the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Moreover, the Asteroid 2039 Payne-Gaposchkin was named after her.

In Cecilia Payne’s own words, “The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience... The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape.” Let’s hope she continues to inspire all young minds, and not just of women, to continue to challenge what exists and never be afraid to fail. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.