Meet IIT graduate, went to MIT, came back to IIT as professor, she is now first woman to…

IIT graduates are known all over the globe for their out of the box thinking, vision and hard work. While most IIT graduates are hired by a few of the biggest companies in the world, a bunch of them go on a path to start their own venture. Although many IIT graduates make it big, only a few are able to etch their names in history. One such IIT graduate was able to add her name in the history is Dr Preeti Aghalayam. She is the  first woman to serve as campus director at an IIT. For those who are unaware, IIT Madras recently opened its offshore campus in Zanzibar, Tanzania with 35 undergraduate and 15 postgraduate students. IIT IT graduate Dr Preeti Aghalayam is now serving as the Director-in-charge of Zanzibar campus. 

Recognised from the Principal Scientific Advisor's office as one of the 75 Women in STEM, Preeti Aghalayam has written numerous articles alongside other professors on topics including estimating the impacts of inlet manifold design on diesel oxidation catalytic converter performance and the effects of urea injection non-uniformities on SCR performance using CFD. She is also a marathon runner and a blogger.

After graduating from IIT Madras with a BTech in chemical engineering in 1991, Preeti Aghalayam moved to the US to pursue an MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester in New York. She joined the University of Massachusetts for her Ph.D. in 1996 after receiving her MS. She has also held positions as a faculty at IIT Bombay and a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, Cambridge.