They are passionate, strong and independent women of science that look like our neighborhood aunties, but pack a scientific punch that would impress the likes of Tony Stark and Elon Musk. Today, let’s take a look at the women in ISRO.
1. Tessy Thomas – the missile woman of India who headed the Agni IV and Agni V mission
2. Kriti Faujdar – computer scientist who works at the Master Control Facility, keeping satellites in their proper orbits
She wants to pursue MTech in the future to be a better scientist for ISRO in the future.
3. Minal Sampath, worked 18 hours a day for the Mars Orbital Mission
What’s next? She aims to become the first woman director to head a national space agency. A hardworking woman like that, fingers crossed!
4. N Valarmathi – led the launch of India’s first indigenously developed the radar imaging satellite, the RISAT-1
5. Anuradha TK – As a Geosat Programme Director, she is the senior-most woman officer at ISRO
“Sometimes I say that I forget that I’m a woman here. You’re treated as an equal here.”
6. Nandini Harinath – her first job was at ISRO and 20 years later there is no looking back
7. Moumita Dutta – read about the Chandrayaan mission as a student, now works as a Project Manager for the Mars Mission
“THE ENTIRE MISSION HAS 20% OF WOMEN SCIENTISTS DEEPLY INVOLVED IN THE MARS MISSION”
8. Ritu Karidhal, mother of two worked on most weekends, brainstorming with ISRO engineers
As a kid, Mrs. Ritu Karidhal used to wonder why the moon becomes bigger and smaller. She also wondered what lay in the dark side of the moon.
And decades later, she became the Deputy Operations Director of the Mars Orbiter Mission. After reading each and everything related to space science as a kid, she now heads one of the most well-known missions of ISRO.
Today, there are more than 16,000 women working for ISRO and the number is growing every day. It is easy to imagine ISRO completely comprised of men because all 7 heads have been men.
But the fact is that thousands of women work hard for our premier space agency.