Anna Mani was an Indian physicist and meteorologist. She retired as the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department and further served as a visiting professor at the Raman Research
Anna Mani was born on 23rd August 1918 in Peerumedu, Travancore. The influence of struggle for freedom and Gandhian thoughts was very much evident by her personality.
Mani wanted to pursue dancing, but she decided in favour of physics because she liked the subject. In 1939, she graduated from the Pachaiyappas College in Chennai (then Madras), with a B.Sc Honors degree in physics and chemistry.
In 1940, she won a scholarship for research in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In 1945, she went to Imperial College, London to pursue graduate studies in physics but ended up specialising in meteorological instruments.
Career
After graduating from Pachai college, Mani worked under Prof. C V Raman, researching the optical properties of ruby and diamond.[2][4] She authored five research papers and submitted her Ph.D. dissertation
She was not granted a Ph.D. because she did not have a master's degree in physics. After returning to India in 1948, she joined the meteorology department in Pune, where she published numerous research papers on meteorological instrumentation.
Tributes
The World Meteorological Organization remembered her on her 100th birth anniversary and published her life profile along with an interview.[7]
On 23 August 2022, Google honoured Mani with a Google Doodle on her 104th birth anniversary.[8]