Shobhana Narasimhan - Session 01, 2022-03-20

(00:00:00) Shobhana Narasimhan talks about her journey which began in Mumbai, where her father, the mathematician M.S. Narasimhan, worked at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. They first lived near the Colaba Post Office before moving to the TIFR Campus in Navy Nagar. She attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary, also known as Fort Convent. She joined St Xavier’s College for her 11th and 12th and BSc studies. She then moved to the US for a PhD, followed by two post docs – one in the US and the other in Germany. Thereafter, she moved to her present position in Bangalore.

(00:02:12) Experience at school Narasimhan points out that physics was not her favourite subject in school. She says her physics teacher was probably the one she disliked the most. The teacher’s strictness led to her developing a phobia of physics. At some point a new teacher joined, but he wasn’t inspiring either. In fact, after her ICSE, she wanted to avoid studying physics even though she was eager to pursue science. However, Narasimhan goes on to mention that her overall school experience was a positive one. It was a girls’ school and they were never ever made to feel that being female brought certain constraints. Everyone was encouraged to be intellectually active and strong. The math teacher, Mrs Krishnan, was very supportive. The library was excellent and the librarian Mrs Chari would always encourage a lot of reading. She waived the rule of borrowing one book a week and Narasimhan was allowed to borrow as many books as she wanted. She also points out, especially in the present context, the school encouraged a liberal atmosphere.

(00:06.36) Growing up within the TIFR campus Narasimhan first calls it an idyllic childhood. However, when she looks back it seems a very weird environment to be growing up in because of its homogeneity. And the constant expectation of being academically brilliant. She wanted to study science and for her it was a fantastic place – there was enormous positive reinforcement from the community. She had a friends group of 15-20 people and nearly all of them went on to do PhDs in science. So a large number of scientists have emerged out of that group. And very interestingly there have been many more female scientists than male scientists. She adds that for someone who wasn’t academically inclined it must have been a rather difficult place to grow up in. She remembers how one friend’s ambition of becoming an air-hostess was considered scandalous. Even the thought of doing medicine or engineering was considered not good enough.

(00:11.10) Exposure to other cultures while growing up As her father travelled for work, Narasimhan spent extended periods in Princeton, England and Paris while growing up. She thinks this is typical of those children who grow up in TIFR – and it plays a big role in their cultural development. It makes one comfortable with different cultures.

(00:12.10) Encouragement at home It was an encouraging and supportive environment. Narasimhan’s mother, at some point, did not believe she was suitable to do research. Her father was keen that she do science. However, the key was that she was given total freedom to do whatever she wanted. Since she was interested in physics, her father would buy her all the physics books she wanted. She also had access to the TIFR library. Here she also talks about her brother. Since he wasn’t academically oriented, she believes TIFR was not such a nurturing environment for him to grow up in.

(00:13.58) Excellent teachers at St Xavier’s College Narasimhan thinks it was St Xavier’s College that reinstated her love for physics. There were some excellent teachers. She mentions Jehangir Mistry, R.V. Kamath, Subir Paranjpe. She talks about the experience of Subir Paranjpe, which made a huge impression on her. Paranjpe had a PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago and had postdoctoral position in TIFR. He then fell into a bureaucratic mess, where even though he had a PhD in physics he didn’t have a Masters degree and was not allowed to teach at the bachelor’s level. He taught quantum mechanics at the 11-12th level and was brilliant. As wouldn’t stick to the syllabus strictly, many students complained and he was eventually dismissed.

(00:16.25) Gender discrimination at St Xavier’s College Narasimhan points out that in her 11-12th class, there were 75 students with only 4 girls. She felt the boys ostracised her because she topped the class. Much later when she was leaving after finishing her BSc, some of them apologised. She didn’t realise then that gender was an issue and the reason people were not talking to her was because she was a well-performing girl. Narasimhan says she had a miserable time socially during those years. However, while doing her BSc she was much happier. The gender balance had improved, people were less uptight about marks. She feels she got a liberal arts education at Xavier’s even though she was studying physics, as she had the opportunity to take courses in subjects like philosophy, film appreciation, music, journalism. She was also involved in a lot of writing at that time. Xavier’s made an exception for her when they allowed her to study physics, math and geology, which wasn’t otherwise an option. In those days, in the 1980’s it was very unusual for people to be so liberal. So she says she would always be grateful to the college.

(00:20.28) Indian Institute of Technology and the issue of gender Narasimhan says the gender imbalance in IIT was a huge issue. The atmosphere was regressive. It was uncommon for men and women to socialize freely. It was a bizarre society from an anthropological point of view. There were five per cent women and therefore very visible. The masses had weird ideas about women – women can’t do better than men in anything that is a true test of intellect. She did not suffer too much as the years at Xavier’s had instilled social self-confidence. She was active in extra-curricular activities – but was witness to a lot of younger girl students really suffer. It was in IIT that her feminist ideas got massively strengthened because of what she saw around her.

(00:22.54) Working in Harvard Narasimhan says when she went to Harvard University, she wanted to study either high energy physics or astrophysics. However, she changed her mind when she started working with David Vanderbilt. There were many great physicists at Harvard around that time. Steven Weinberg had just left but he would visit often. Several Nobel Prize winners including Sheldon Glashow, Carlo Rubbia were there. The big names in condensed matter physics were Bert Halperin, David Nelson, Daniel Fisher, Cumrun Vafa. She decided to change her subject as she found the high energy physicists very arrogant. Some of them would start their classes by saying, ‘I know this class will be at a high level and all of you won’t be able to follow me. But I am not going to make any allowances whatsoever.’ This made her think she would not be able to survive in such an atmosphere. To her, the condensed matter physicists seemed less intimidating. Later, she was glad she chose condensed matter physics, even for scientific reasons.

(00:26.30) Her father’s advice Narasimhan says she would write long letters to her father expressing her anguish over whether physics was worth doing. He would always advise her to forget about it as he had no sympathy for this kind of agonising attitude. He played a big role in her going to Harvard. She had applied to the slightly less good universities in the US. When she told her father, he advised her to also apply to all the top schools. He said if, ‘you are going to go abroad, you should try to go to the best. Otherwise you might as well stay in India.’ Just to keep him happy she applied to these places and got into many of them.

(00:28.22) Time at Harvard, working under David Vanderbilt Narasimhan feels her time at Harvard was stressful. She thinks it didn’t have a friendly or nurturing atmosphere. Her advisor David Vanderbilt was a nice person, but also very quiet. He was very brilliant and therefore often made her feel worse in some ways. She would try to crack a problem for days and then go to him. He would just look at it, think quietly and give her the answer. Narasimhan says Harvard also had a big gender imbalance. She says the general message that was given was that one wasn’t good enough. She talks about seminars where famous people would give lectures and they would just be attacked by the faculty members and torn to shreds. It was as if they had to defend every single statement. The good thing that happened was that after that no audience looked as threatening. However, she made very good friends, and intellectually it was a very interesting place. She started a group for women in science at Harvard. Took courses in history of science, journalism.

(00:32.48) Work done for PhD Narasimhan’s recalls the title of her theses as ‘Anharmonic self-energies of phonons, silicon.’ She goes on to explain the science. Silicon is the material that is crucial for the semi-conductor industry. She studied the vibrations in silicon, which are important as in room temperature or any finite temperature the silicon atom starts vibrating and that influences its properties a lot. People initially thought that they vibrate like springs i.e. the interaction between the atoms is like a spring. But if one considers that certain things like thermal expansion cannot happen. Therefore, the interactions have to be different in nature – these are called ‘anharmonic effects.’ Narasimhan studies these effects and did first principle calculations and density functional theory. Also with David Vanderbilt she worked on how the atoms are arranged on the surface of gold. She studied the herring bone reconstruction.

(00:35.02) Work at Brookhaven lab The atmosphere at Brookhaven Lab was relaxed and friendly. At Brookhaven she worked on alloys and why they sometimes have complicated structures. She mentions here that over the course of her career she has asked a lot of different questions often motivated by experiments. But the basic techniques used to answer them are similar.

(00:36.20) Berlin The physics group at Berlin had a tense atmosphere. This was in the early 90’s, the Berlin Wall had just come down, so the city was throbbing with excitement and vibrancy. Narasimhan says she lived near the centre of the city and explored it thoroughly.

(00:37.43) Decision to return to India Narasimhan says, mainly inspired by her father, she always knew she would come back to India. He was part of the first generation post-independence scientists who were very influenced by ideas of patriotism and building a new country. He had strong ideas about the use of science as a tool for development. These made a huge impact on her. She says that though she feels very comfortable abroad she has always felt that this is her country and this is where she belongs.

(00:39.24) Joining JNCASR Narasimhan says the first few years at JNCASR were not easy. People didn’t go out of their way to be helpful. She was not well-versed to how the Indian scientific establishment worked. People were not particularly friendly and were not eager to collaborate. She took a few years to find her feet. In retrospect, she feels the behaviour she received was probably effects of sexism and gender perhaps played a huge role.

(00:41.54) Her most important contributions Narasimhan explains computational nano science, which is designing nano materials on the computer. She talks about her interest in designing material that can be catalyst, can be magnets, can be molecular machines. Sometimes the prediction comes first, then an experiment confirms it. However, sometimes the experiment is done first and then they explain it. She says what excites her most is when the prediction is made first. For her, this proves the power of theoretical physics. While talking about her most important contributions, she mentions two works. She goes on to explain them. In the first, she talks about what happens when a gold nano particle is deposited on an oxide surface. Usually it clumps up like a drop. However, there are reasons to believe that for many applications, instead of it being round it should be flat. Narasimhan and her students predicted that by introducing some impurity atoms in the substrate, gold nano particle does go flat. Then experimentalists in Germany ran the experiment and showed that it worked. In the second project, she talks about alloys. Not all material mix together to form alloys. E.g. Iron and gold don’t mix together. Narasimhan and her students predicted worked with collaborators in France showed that iron and gold deposited on ruthenium forms an alloy. At this point she mentions that at present she has four students, all of whom happen to be male. She says that the reason she doesn’t have any female students now is because many of them have had to quit due to various personal constraints. She comments on how female students are even today struggling to stay in science even if they want to.

(00:48.27) Member of the working group for women at IUPAP and organising workshops for women at ICTP Narasimhan talks about the working group for women at IUPAP where they have representatives from various countries spread around the world. They survey the situation of women in physics. They also organise an international conference for women in physics every three years. She had been attending these conferences, initially as a delegate from India and then as member of the working group. At one of these conferences, she heard a woman from Kenya speak about how she became pregnant and applied for maternity leave, the department responded by firing her. She was very upset and was contemplating giving up physics. Another woman stood up in the audience and shouted, ‘Sister, don’t give up, fight, we will support you.’ Other women joined in. This was the moment that Narasimhan decided she needed to do more to help women in physics. She goes on to talk about Elizabeth Simmons, her junior and fellow organiser of the women in physics group at Harvard. Simmons and Narasimhan together decided to organise the ICTP workshops. These workshops are the first of their kind held at ICTP. They conduct drama therapy sessions, sessions on how combine career and family, sessions on how to write scientific papers. They have been extremely successful – women from 80 countries have participated so far. Many women have said it has literally transformed their lives. Narasimhan feels very proud of them. They are held every two years in Trieste and in between at the new ICTP in Rwanda. It could happen only once before the pandemic. Similar efforts are also being made at ICTP Argentina. [00:56:02 - 00:58:31 - Restricted Access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in for details]

(00:58.47) Working on committees set up by the government of India Narasimhan talks about the work she has been doing on the difference between working for committees for women in science in developed and developing worlds. She thinks they have different patterns and where the real problem seems to be different. She feels that developed countries have low participation of women in science all through. So already at school level they have small numbers of women doing science. Whereas in developing countries there is a high number of women doing science even up to the PhD level and then there is a huge drop. She feels, therefore, that the initiatives taken at the government level have to be different. The Indian government is aware of that and has been trying to do different things.

(00:58.35) Level of research in computational nanoscience in India Narasimhan ends by talking about the level of research in her area in India compared to the rest of the world. She feels China is well ahead mainly because they have systematically put money into it. Fifteen years ago there was hardly anybody in China and she was one of those who was invited to China to train young Chinese students to work in this field. Now there are a lot of Chinese working in the field. She feels India has also come up a lot. But this hasn’t happened because of a directed programme. It has evolved by itself.