Purnima Sinha

First woman Ph.D. in Physics (1956, Calcutta), she retired from the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute.

An excerpt from the publication "Like mother, like daughter":
"Around the middle of 1951 I started working on my Ph.D. with Prof. S. N.Bose at the Khaira Laboratory in Kolkata. He advised me to carry out an investigation on the structure of clay from various parts of India. He suggested that I could use techniques of thermal and chemical analysis along with X-ray scattering and also suggested that I fabricate my own X-ray tube of the Coolidge kind so that the parts could be dismantled and put together at will. At that time about ten of us were involved in experimental research at the Khaira laboratory. Each of us used to fabricate his or her own instrument according to individual need. This was an unwritten rule in our laboratory."