Nallathamby Kalaiselvi: Meet first Indian woman to head country’s top scientific body
After resuming the chair as director of CSIR, Kalaiselvi will now lead the consortium of 38 research institutes in the country
New Delhi: Be it in the field of sports, business, IT sector, or more, Indian women are not just emerging as the top contenders but also making the nation proud with their inspirational achievements.
In the sequence, senior scientist Nallathamby Kalaiselvi has become the first Indian woman to head the country’s top scientific body. On Saturday, she was appointed as director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
After resuming the chair as director of CSIR, Kalaiselvi will now lead the consortium of 38 research institutes in the country.
Kalaiselvi is the successor of former CSIR director Shekhar Mande, whose tenure ended in April this year. The body had given the additional charge of the designation to the Secretary of Department of Biotechnology, Rajesh Gokhale after Mande’s retirement.
Who is Nallathamby Kalaiselvi?
Kalaiselvi hails from a small town called Ambasamudhram, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. She went to a Tamil medium school in her town, which she once told helped her to get a hold of basic concepts of science.
Later she took science in college and started her career as an entry-level scientist in research in Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CSIR-CECRI), and went on to become the first woman to head the very same institue in February 2019.
Kalaiselvi’s career and work
Kalaiselvi is best known for her work in the field of lithium ion batteries. Her research work of over 25 years has been solely focused on electrochemical power systems, and to be more precise in development of electrode materials, and electrochemical evaluation of in-house prepared electrode materials for their suitability in energy storage device assembly.