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International Women’s Day is a global celebration held annually on the 8th of March, honouring the social, economic, cultural, scientific, technological, and political achievements of women around the world. From grassroots activism to global movements, this Day serves as a reminder of the importance of advocating for women’s rights and empowering women in all spheres of life.
This year, as in 2022, we take the opportunity to motivate women to step into the world of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) through the narratives of women researchers in the Division of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
Kiran Kumari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IISc. She works in the broad area of control theory and its applications. Her current research includes event-triggered control, multi-agent systems, control of quadrotors, sliding mode control, nonlinear systems and control, and networked control systems. In this interview, she voices her opinions to Ananta Kant Rai, a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering at IISc. [A recording is available here; this transcript has been slightly edited]
Ananta: We first celebrated International Women’s Day in the year 1911, in the month of March. It’s been 113 years. What do you think? How far have we come?
Kiran: First of all, after 113 years, a lot of progress has been made in the advancement of gender equality globally. But there are still certain problems and scope for improvement and progress. If we talk about the field of education, the access to education for a girl and a woman has increased dramatically as we can see a lot more girls are going to school and pursuing higher education. Having said that, the unfortunate side is that many a time due to social reasons and family pressure, a girl’s education doesn’t play a priority in the house. Similarly if I talk about workplaces, the participation of women in workplaces has significantly increased. We can see women holding positions which are prestigious across technical and non-technical fields. But again, gender disparities persist in terms of pay scale, job opportunities, and even leadership positions. It is very encouraging to see movements regarding women’s rights and gender equality gaining momentum in the recent past, which led to increased awareness and support towards gender equality initiatives worldwide.
Having said that, a lot of work has been done, and there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. There are certain challenges in addition to what I mentioned, like gender gap and job opportunities. We also need to address systemic inequalities. I feel that International Women’s Day is a reminder of all the progress which has been done so far and the ongoing effort that is needed to maintain equality in the world for all the genders.
Ananta: How do you see it in the context of IISc? How inclusive is IISc being today?
Kiran: If I first talk about India, the gender inequalities are more about the social stigma and the patriarchy. But in IISc, we can see that there are many women researchers. We have a good number of students working across different areas of research, and we see women in different other positions also that are not academics or research oriented. So, we have been able to maintain a good number of women representation at IISc.
Ananta: You talked about India in your previous answer. Do you think that women in India face more gender bias and other norms than in other countries?
Kiran: In India, people still feel that if a woman is more educated or if a woman holds a position in academics or anywhere which is influential, then it is very difficult for her to get a perfect match as a life partner. This is because of the social stigma, and this sometimes demotivates parents or family also to not allow the girl child or a woman to pursue a career in any field. So, I would say that we first need to work on this mentality and social stigma.
Ananta: Yeah, definitely! Even after pursuing a good education, many women step back from taking any leadership positions because that requires them to devote more time.
Kiran: Exactly! It shouldn’t be the responsibility of a woman to always keep a balance between the work and the personal life. It should be a work which is done together by the spouse and the person to maintain this work–life balance.
Ananta: How are you maintaining work–life balance after joining IISc?
Kiran: I like to devote certain hours of my day towards my work and then once I am out of that, I would like to devote my time to my family.
Ananta: That is definitely important for a researcher as our minds are not always working.
Kiran: Exactly! If we exhaust ourselves in just doing research even if we are not able to, because of other responsibility or thinking going in our mind related to our house, we won’t be able to give our best. So, it’s better to devote a time whenever you are motivated or there are certain thoughts coming in your mind to work towards that problem, and then just step back and be free in your personal life.
Ananta: What motivated you to pursue a career in this field?
Kiran: As many other researchers, in school, my favourite subjects were also maths and science. I decided first to do Bachelors in BSc Maths and I took admission at Saint Stephens. But, I also had interest in engineering and in my family, I had my brother who was an engineer. So, because of this interest in maths, in solving equations and analytical problem solving, I thought to pursue my career – first of all, a Bachelors in Electronics and Communication Engineering. There, I got interested in analytical subjects like engineering mathematics, signal processing, control theory, etc. Then, I applied to Masters in Control and Automation, which I did from IIT Delhi. There, for the first time, I got exposed to the fascinating area of control theory and specifically, nonlinear control and sliding mode control, which is right now my area of research.
It got me to apply for a PhD at IIT Bombay in Systems and Control. I was fortunate to get the opportunity to work with one of the stalwarts of sliding mode control, Professor Bijnan Bandyopadhyay. There, I also met my husband Aseem who used to work on robotics. I was always a theory person during my research period at IIT Bombay. That motivated me to apply all the theoretical work I had been doing in practical applications, which has also led to the foundation of the Control & Robotics lab in the Electrical Engineering department at IISc.
Ananta: Robotics is actually a very fascinating area. Every other person is talking about it, and it looks like the next generation thing. But, do you see many women being a part of it?
Kiran: This is a very interesting question because if you see the number of women participating in certain fields like computer science or biology – there, you see more women, but I would say the ratio is not that good. We have women in electrical engineering also and specifically in the field of robotics; in control, there are a lot of women. I hope more women will be interested in working in robotics. Internationally, I see that there are female researchers working in this area.
Ananta: That’s great! What do you think is the most challenging part of your role or your research field and how are you working towards it?
Kiran: As we were discussing, I work in the area of modern control theory and its application, where it takes time to understand concepts and develop novel theoretical results that have application in real world systems. Often, it is very difficult to find motivated students who are willing to work towards solving these problems which are challenging in terms of developing concepts and the time taken. So, I try to present these research problems in the context of practical applications, such as robotics, to motivate the students. I also try to make the underlying theories more exciting and relatable by making them understand the use of these problems in practical applications.
Ananta: Certainly! Sometimes, solving these theoretical problems may not be exciting but that application motivates many.
Kiran: Exactly!
Ananta: Who would you say have been the most motivating people in your life or your mentors in this journey of research?
Kiran: During my BTech I had… it’s not like some world-known person, but during my journey in the course of education in Bachelors, I have seen few professors who were very motivated towards their work. They were encouraging us also to read research papers. That basically excited me that we are doing certain courses to learn certain concepts, but what is this about reading papers?. So then, I got motivated towards that and they were also very encouraging. As I told in my previous answer, my supervisor during PhD was my idol that time because he is one of the pioneering persons in that field, and of course, my family members.
Ananta: The first step is always very exciting; so, the earliest you get to it, the best it is… What will be your advice to the young woman researchers who would like to step in STEM and how to overcome the hurdles that they may face in their journey?
Kiran: It is a very difficult question because we don’t have one answer for this. We have been seeing that women are holding positions in various fields, but still it is very challenging for women to pursue a career in any technical and non-technical field. So, I would say first of all, we all need to maintain cordial relationships with our peers and juniors, so that we can create an environment which is good for research and learning.
To overcome any hurdle which you face on the way to success, you will first need to have faith in your abilities, irrespective of what others say. You will face criticism. Take the criticism in a positive light and use it to improve yourself without letting it affect your self-esteem and confidence.
In the end, I would say that we should always be curious about this never-ending journey of learning and research, and sometimes, we should also take pride in our accomplishments 😊.
Ananta: Thank you. It was a great interaction with you and I hope it will be motivating for young women to step towards STEM.
Kiran: Thank you so much for this interaction, and I hope my words will be helpful to some girl students or women out there.
