Field: Indian Meteorology

Born in Pune, Sulochana Gadgil received immense support from her family to study and create her own identity. Her grand parents and her father were physicians of their time. Her mother was a Marathi writer. Her grand father was also a notable freedom fighter.

She completed her undergraduate studies in Science stream  at Fergusson College . At this point she was engaged to Madhav Gadgil , her classmate . She had caught his attention when he spotted Sulochana jump out of college window to escape a boring lecture! They both decided to study in the field of science and they both managed to get scholarship in Havard.

The couple returned to India and she worked in the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology as a CSIR pool officer for two years. She worked with scientists like R. Ananthakrishnan and D.R Sikka during this period. She was recruited to the Centre for Theoretical Studies (CTS) as a member.

Monsoons for India are very important and with many scientists at IISc and other institutions in the country, Ms. Sulochana studied the ‘How and Why’ of monsoon variability, with analysis of conventional and satellite data and investigations of models of varying levels of complexity to understand the mechanisms responsible for important phenomena.

Her research led to the discovery of a basic feature of the sub-seasonal variation in the monsoon cloud bands.  She demonstrated that the monsoon is not a gigantic land-sea breeze but instead is a manifestation of the seasonal migration of a planetary scale system which is seen over non-monsoonal regions as well. In collaboration with the farmers she derived farming strategies which are tailored to the rainfall variability of different regions in India.

Her contributions are exemplary in one of the most complex phenomenon on which the agrariansociety like India can not be ignored.

My one-line take away : Sometimes it takes a strong support from family family, a stronger supportive partner and more important than anything a strong determination to make a mark for a woman in this male dominated society.

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PS: I have planned to take up non-fiction this year as my theme for the A2Z challenge, where every day in the month of April ( except Sundays) I will be writing about women in the stream of science and their contributions.  Disclaimer -The information collected is from different sources available online.

The main objective is to draw inspiration and share information about such great lives who did it, despite all difficulties in their life.

Love,

Chinmayee

I’m participating in #BlogchatterA2Z