Meet one of the leading women seismologists of India

The earthquake that shook Latur, Maharashtra in 1993 was one of the deadliest earthquakes the country has ever seen. The natural disaster, which claimed lives of around 10,000 people, had reminded the nation that we are vulnerable to nature. The government and the citizens had shown exemplary will power and cooperation to rehabilitate the victims. Many researches and studies were conducted by leading scientists and seismologists to avoid such catastrophes in the future. Prominent among them was Kushala Rajendran, the winner of the first national award for women scientist for ocean sciences and technology and atmospheric sciences technology.

Kushala was born in an orthodox family which refused its women to pursue higher education. She overcame all these challenges to pursue higher studies in applied geophysics, a subject which was not very popular among girl students in 1970’s. The eminent seismologist dedicated her national award to all those women who had pursued their dreams by overcoming many challenges in life.

Kushala completed her MTech in geophysics from IIT Rourkee and she was the only woman among the six students who had enrolled for the course. She completed her post graduation in 1979 but still situations were not favourable for her to pursue a successful career. As part of her career she had to travel a lot, that too with colleagues who were mostly men. However, Kushala had faced this inequality which Indian women go through with great strength and courage. She went to the University of South Carolina, US, for her PhD in 1987. She returned to India in 1993 and joined the Center for Earth Sciences in Thiruvananthapuram. She is currently an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore.

It was during her stint at the Center for Earth Sciences in Thiruvananthapuram that Kushala found her life partner, C P Rajendran who is also a geologist. Before marriage, both of them had worked together in many projects. The earthquake in Latur was their first project and the couple went on to published many research journals which the world noted. Kushala and Rajendran had also studied the tsunami after the killer waves struck the coasts of South India in 2004. During their research at Kaveripattinam, Tamil Nadu, they had doubts whether tsunami had struck the Indian coasts earlier. However the couple was not able to find any official records. At last, after intensive research, they were able to decipher the first hints of tsunami from Manimekalai, an ancient Tamil epic.

Kushala had also won the prestigious Krishnan memorial gold medal in 1993 besides many other major and minor accolades. India which once trailed behind in the area of geophysics studies and research has now reached on par with many developed nations. The credit for this definitely goes to the incredibly talented Indian scientists which include many women like Kushala Rajendran.