Google Doodle honours Indian biochemist Kamala Sohonie on her 112th birth anniversary

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.run/post/6577

The Google Doodle today paid tribute to Indian biochemist Kamala Sohonie on her 112th birth anniversary. The search giant came up with a creative doodle for the first Indian woman to achieve a Ph.D in a scientific field during a time when Indian women were conspicuously underrepresented in scientific disciplines.

According to the Google blog, Kamala Sohonie was born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh on this day in 1911 to parents who were respected chemists. She wanted to follow in her father and uncle's steps, so she studied chemistry and physics at Bombay University. Kamala graduated at the top of her class in 1933. She also became the first woman to be inducted into the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

The director at the institute doubted her capabilities but later was so impressed by her that the IISc began accepting more women into their program. For the next few years, Sohonie studied the various proteins found in legumes and concluded they boosted nutrition in children. In 1936, she published her thesis on this subject and obtained her master’s degree, as per the Google blog.