Rao Sumathi

Rao obtained her PhD in particle physics from Stony Brook University (USA) in 1983, after completing her master's degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Following postdoctoral appointments at Fermilab and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she returned to India in 1987 to join the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, as a faculty member. In 1995, she joined the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad (Prayagraj), where she served as a professor until 2021. She subsequently moved to the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru. Rao has made seminal contributions to high-energy physics and condensed matter physics. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the American Physical Society. Rao was also among the initiators of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) International Conference on Women in Physics and has played an important role in the global effort to improve the representation and participation of women in physics.