IIT, or the Indian Institutes of Technology, is a dream college for many youngsters in India looking to build a career in engineering.More than just an academic achievement, it is also a symbol of pride for families who believe that making it into an IIT is just the beginning of a sprawling career, and people graduated from there can achieve great heights in their future.But just as the sky has no limits, what if studying in an IIT was just the start and going as far as leading the new normal?Preeti Aghalayam is the first woman who first studied at a top IIT and then chose to lead one abroad.Let’s dig in to find out more.
Meet Preeti Aghalayam: An IIT Madras student and the first woman to lead an IIT abroad
Many students walk out of campus with a degree and never look back. Preeti Aghalayam did the opposite. She joined IIT Madras in 1991 for a BTech in Chemical Engineering and graduated in 1995.After graduating, she moved to the United States and completed an MS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester and a PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2000, and joined as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT.On returning to India, she first joined the Chemical Engineering faculty at IIT Bombay, according to her LinkedIn profile.Her IIT Madras chapter as a teacher began later. She joined the institute in 2010 and is a professor in the Chemical Engineering department.
She became the Director-in-Charge of the Zanzibar campus
The big turn came in 2023 when she was appointed Director-in-Charge of IIT Madras Zanzibar, the institute’s first international campus, in Tanzania, which began classes that October. This made her the first woman to be an IIT director.Building a campus from scratch is no small task. According to ThePrint, she was also named Dean of the School of Science and Engineering there, and she had been brushing up on her Swahili before the launch.Aghalayam has spoken openly about what the role means in a PTI interview; she said that her story is framed around the idea of “Once an IITian, always an IITian.” She also pointed out that women make up only about 12 per cent of the faculty at IIT Madras.
Where she is now
After Zanzibar, she took on a new role and became Dean, Global Engagement at IIT Madras, where she looks after the institute’s international engagement work. The institute’s website now lists her as the former Director-in-Charge of the Zanzibar campus. Outside work, she is a marathon runner and a blogger.