Dr. Malathy Venkatesan – Senior Scientist at Innovation Centre of Tata Chemicals Ltd
The motivating forces that led you to take to your educational and professional careers. What drove you to take up these respective fields?
Science fascinated and intrigued me from childhood. My mother, a mathematician encouraged inquisitiveness about science in everything around us. I, therefore, took up pure science as the subject for studies all the way to a doctorate. Research and development was the profession chosen by me for further pursuit of science to commercialize applications and innovations thereof.
What were the challenges you faced from your educational career to your working life and how did you overcome them?
The first challenge was the loss of my parents very early in my educational timeline. Fortunately, I had competed and won a government merit scholarship during the IXth standard, which paid for my education till graduation. For further studies, I joined UDCT (now called ICT) again on a scholarship and continued on a GATE fellowship for a doctorate. During my studies towards PhD, I faced a lot of challenges in juggling responsibilities to look after my son and manage to study.
As a woman have you faced any difficulties in your career from a male-dominated world?
I believe women have to work at least twice as much to achieve what men can, mainly because they have a family and children to nurture along with a career. Women are required to compromise advances in career especially if the family is young and there is minimal support. I had to wait for a few years before joining the mainstream industry as my priority at that time was my young child.
In the industry, fewer jobs are available for women even if the qualifications are equal. In comparison to men, fewer women rise in their careers to reach top posts. I have seen men who were my contemporaries grow faster in their career.
I found that at Tata Chemicals’ Innovation center, women are treated well and allowed to grow in knowledge as well as career. I am happy to have finally found my niche and a place to pursue my passion for learning along with the delivery of science-based service to the company as well as society.
