August 16, 2023
Preeti Aghalayam has been appointed as the director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras’ Zanzibar campus, the first offshore IIT campus. She is the first female director of an IIT. Currently a professor in the chemical engineering department of IIT Madras, Aghalayam is an alumnus of the institution. In 1995, she completed her BTech in chemical engineering from the institution and went on to acquire a PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, in 2000. She joined IIT Madras’ teaching faculty in 2010 and will lead the Zanzibar campus where the first academic session is scheduled to begin in October 2023. The Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India recently honoured 75 women in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) including Aghalayam.
Image Source: acr.iitm.ac.in
