Thank you so much Tandralee Chetia
We learned a ton in our meeting with Tandralee Chetia, a scientist who formerly worked for the Indian Space Research Organization. She spoke to us about Kalpana Chawla, who she cited as an inspiration for both her and many young Indian girls. She struggled to get to where she is now because she is from a suburban town that didn’t even have a legitimate university.
She discussed how discrimination she experienced outside of her line of work had an impact on her job despite being an indirect challenge. She also discussed how, when a woman works in a field that is predominately male, men automatically assume that she knows nothing, which is untrue. This has some impact on one’s confidence, which in turn has an impact on the calibre of your work. She said, when asked if she had ever questioned her abilities, “As a researcher, my experiments fail every week, but I have few people in my life who constantly uplift my confidence.”
She added that although those in this generation are not the brightest, what makes them unique is that they put forth a lot of effort and persevere even in the face of failure.
“Resilience is a quality that you need in order to be successful”.