Anna Mani

FASc, FNA, Ph.D. (submitted 1945, Madras). The only woman scientist to work with C.V. Raman, is well known for her work in atmospheric physics and instrumentation. She contributed to the study of radiation, ozone and atmospheric electricity, both on the surface and in the upper air using special sounding techniques. Joining the India Meteorological Department in 1948 she rose to become the Deputy Director General of Observatories in Delhi.

An excerpt from the publication "An appreciation of Anna Mani":
"Anna Mani grew up in a prosperous family in the state of Travancore, a former princely state in the Southern part of India, now part of Kerala. Born in 1918, she was the seventh of eight siblings. Anna Mani’s father was a civil engineer with large cardamom estates to his name. The family belonged to the ancient Syrian Christian church; however her father remained an agnostic throughout his life. The Mani family was a typical upper-class professional household where from childhood the male children were groomed for high-level careers, whereas the daughters were primed for marriage. But Anna Mani would have none of it. Her formative years were spent engrossed in books. By the age of eight, she had read almost all the books in Malayalam at her public library and, by the time she was twelve, all the books in English. On her eighth birthday she declined to accept her family’s customary gift of a set of diamond earrings, opting instead for a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. The world of books opened her to new ideas and imbued in her a deep sense of social justice which informed and shaped her life."