Dr Preeti Aghalayam: IIT Gets First Ever Woman Director

India-West News Desk

CHENNAI – Dr Preeti Aghalayam will be the first woman director to lead an IIT campus. She has been named as the first Director-in-charge for IIT Madras Zanzibar.

“The Zanzibar Campus of the IIT Madras will be located on the Zanzibar Island, off the East African mainland and is being planned as a unique and game-changing educational partnership between India and Zanzibar-Tanzania,” the premier educational institute said in a press release.

Aghalayam said, “I am an alumnus of IIT Madras and doing something of this magnitude for the institute and for the country is such a big honor. Every time we visited Zanzibar as part of the IIT Madras contingent, we noticed that the representation of women on their side is quite significant. So, it was important that we do this mindfully.”

Aghalayam has had a lot of her academic training in the US. After BTech, she came to the University of Rochester, New York get her master’s in chemical engineering, and the University of Massachusetts for her Ph.D. She has also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, MA, and faculty at IIT Bombay.

Aghalaya has also been acknowledged as one of the 75 Women in STEM by the Principal Scientific Advisor’s office. She is also a marathon runner and a blogger.