She is the first woman to head Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr. Nallathamby Kalaiselvi recently made history by assuming the top post—director-general- in the government-run body.
CSIR was established in 1942 as an autonomous body and now comes under the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.
A consortium or a pool of 38 research institutes across the states in the country, CSIR represents the scientific quests of the country.
Credited for developing materials that can be used as electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, she is an electrochemist. With six patents and over 125 papers to her credit, Dr. Kalaiselvi has been a key contributor to the National Mission for Electric Mobility.
Hailing from the Southern part of Tamil Nadu, a small municipal town in Tirunelveli district she began her stint as an organic chemist and taught at a private college for three years, soon after completing her Ph.D. from the Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu.
Joining CECRI or Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu in 1997, she became the institute’s head in 2019—yet again the first woman to assume the role.
Kalaiselvi is now working on developing sodium-ion/Lithium-sulfur batteries and supercapacitors.
