Preeti Aghalayam has marked a historic milestone in the history of India’s premier engineering institutions by becoming the first woman to lead an Indian Institute of Technology.
Aghalayam’s association with IIT Madras began in 1991, when she joined the institute as a Chemical Engineering student. She completed her BTech in Chemical Engineering in 1995 before moving to the United States for higher studies.
She earned an MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester and completed her PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2000. Following her doctoral studies, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Return to IIT Bombay and IIT Madras
Aghalayam later returned to India and joined the Chemical Engineering department at IIT Bombay as a faculty member. In 2010, she returned to IIT Madras as a professor.
Her academic research has covered several areas of chemical engineering, including underground coal gasification, reactor modelling, reaction mechanisms and efforts to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from automobiles.
A major milestone in her career came in 2023, when IIT Madras appointed her Director-in-Charge of its new international campus in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
First Woman to Head an IIT
IIT Madras Zanzibar was the institute’s first international campus and began academic classes in October 2023. Aghalayam’s appointment to head the campus made her the first woman to lead an IIT.
The Zanzibar campus initially offered programmes in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Its first group of students included learners from Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, India and Nepal.
According to IIT Madras records cited by Business Today, the inaugural batch consisted of 28 students in the BS programme and 17 students in the MTech programme.
Aghalayam played a role in establishing and overseeing the academic operations of the new overseas campus as IIT Madras expanded its international presence.
Role in Global Engagement
After her tenure at the Zanzibar campus, Aghalayam took charge as Dean, Global Engagement, at IIT Madras. The institute’s current Office of Global Engagement website lists her as Dean, with responsibility for its international engagement initiatives.
Her career represents a full-circle journey at IIT Madras—from entering the institute as a Chemical Engineering student in the 1990s, to becoming a professor there and eventually leading its first international campus.
Over the course of her career, Aghalayam has worked across chemical engineering research, teaching, academic administration and international higher education, while also becoming the first woman to head an IIT.