On January 2020, history will be created in the realm of Indian National Science Academy when a woman for the first time becomes its president in its 85 long years of history.
Established in 1935 for the promotion of science in India and also for using this scientific knowledge for the betterment of the people and the nation, the Indian National Science Academy has never had a woman president and now all records are being broken when Chandrima Shaha takes over the reins of the organisation in January 2020.insa
Elected in 2008 to the Indian National Science Academy, she had served as its vice president between 2016 and 2018. She had shown her skills in fields that are male dominated such as science and sports. Apart from being a well known biologist and professor at the National Institute of Immunology, she is also known for being the first woman cricket commentator for the All India Radio. She was also the vice captain of the West Bengal Women’s Cricket team.
Born on October 14, 1952, Chandrima Shaha took her Masters from the University of Calcutta. She did her doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and did her doctoral from the University of Kansas Medical Centre. Before joining the National Institute of Immunology, she was working at the Population Council at New York.
In her career, she had held several positions and also had been member in several institutes and committees. National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, International Consortium on Male Contraception, New York, Task Force on Human Genetics and genome Analysis, Indian Council of Medical Research’s scientific advisory board and Life Science Research Board advisory committee are some of the boards and committees that she had been a member.
She has also won several awards such as Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Medal, J C Bose National Fellowship and Shakuntala Amirchand Award.
