Veronica Filomena Rodrigues (1953–2010) was a Kenyan born Indian biologist. Veronica completed a B.A with honors in microbiology from

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. After being inspired by the work of

Obaid Siddiqi Obaid Siddiqi FRS (7 January 1932 – 26 July 2013) was an Indian National Research Professor and the Founder-Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) National Center for Biological Sciences. He made seminal contribu ...

and his co-workers, she moved to India to pursue her Ph.D. While doing her PhD, considering her exceptional work, she was offered a permanent faculty position at TIFR. She also served as a senior professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. In 2004 she received the Senior National Woman Bioscientist Award. She died in 2010 after suffering from breast cancer for five years.

Life

Early life

Veronica was born in a Goan immigrant family living in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

in 1953. She completed her school education in Nairobi and then entered

Makerere University Makerere University, Kampala (; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of n ...

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...

for higher education but due to turmoil in the region moved to

Education and career

Veronica had to leave Makerere University in Uganda owing to turmoil in the country. She eventually ended up getting a scholarship to study at Trinity College Dublin. She obtained a B.A. with Honours in Microbiology in 1976. She moved to India to pursue her PhD from

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the ...

(TIFR), Mumbai in 1977 under the supervision of Dr

. Veronica describes why she decided to come to TIFR for her PhD: She completed her PhD in 1981 and then went on to obtain post-doctoral training from

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics is located in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Gesellschaft). The institute is studying signal and information processin ...

, Tuebingen, Germany. where she pioneered the study of coding of olfactory information in the brain. After her post-doc, she came back and worked for the

(TIFR) and subsequently became a fellow of the

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi for Indian scientists in all branches of science and technology. In August 2019, Dr. Chandrima Shaha was appointed as the president of Indian National Science Acade ...

. She also assumed many leadership roles in her career — first at the Department of Biological Sciences (earlier the Molecular Biology Unit) at TIFR and later, she became the Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences in TIFR Mumbai.

Personal

When Veronica moved to India for work, she was not an Indian citizen. She applied for Indian citizenship but only got it with much effort and difficulty twenty years after having moved to the country.

Causes

She was passionate about gender equality in the world of sciences. In 1990, she wrote a letter to then Dean Dr R Vijayaraghavan against the usage of titles for women scientists including 'Smt', 'Kum', or 'Ms'. She emphasized that until usage of 'Shri' and 'Kum' for male scientists became a norm, usage of similar titles for women scientists was unnecessary and unacceptable.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodrigues, Veronica 1953 births Indian geneticists Indian women biologists Kenyan biologists 2010 deaths Women geneticists Scientists from Bangalore 20th-century Indian biologists 20th-century Indian women