Who Is Preeti Aghalayam? First Woman Director Of IIT Madras Zanzibar

Dr. Preeti Aghalayam becomes the first woman director to lead an IIT campus. Dr. Aghalayam will work as the first-ever female Director in charge of IIT Madras, Zanzibar. She is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras.

In a press release by the institute, it was stated that the Zanzibar campus of IIT Madras would be located on Zanzibar Island, off the East African mainland. It was being planned as a "unique and game-changing educational partnership" between India and Zanzibar-Tanzania.

Preeti Aghalayam Woman Director IIT Madras Zanzibar

Dr. Preeti Aghalayam expressed that it was such a huge honour to become the first woman director of an IIT. She said that she was an alumnus of IIT Madras and that achieving something of this magnitude for the institute and for the country was a big honour. She shared that every time they visited Zanzibar as part of the IIT Madras contingent, they noticed that the representation of women on their side was quite significant. She expressed that it was important that they do this diligently.

Dr. Aghalayam graduated with a BTech in Chemical Engineering in 1991 from IIT Madras. She went on to the University of Rochester, New York, where she pursued an MS in Chemical Engineering.

After completing her MS, she went to the University of Massachusetts for her Ph.D. in 1996. She also pursued a career as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT Cambridge and as a faculty member at IIT Bombay.

Dr. Aghalayam is also a marathon runner and a blogger. She has authored several articles with other professors as well. She extensively wrote about modelling the effects of non-uniformities from urea injection on SCR performance using CFD, modelling the effects of inlet manifold design on diesel oxidation catalytic converter performance, and more.

Dr. Aghalayam has also been honoured as one of the 75 women by the Principal Scientific Advisor’s Office in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

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