Kamala Sohonie

Kamala Sohonie (1912-1998) was an Indian biochemist and the first Indian woman to earn a doctorate in a scientific discipline, in 1939 from Cambridge University. She had earlier applied to work under C. V. Raman at the Indian Institute of Science and was initially rejected because she was a woman, gaining admission only after she persisted and Raman agreed to admit her on probationary terms; she went on to complete her research there successfully, and the institute subsequently began admitting women students regularly. Her research identified cytochrome c as a widely present respiratory enzyme in plant tissues, and she later devoted much of her career to nutrition science, developing an inexpensive, protein rich supplementary food from neera, the sap of certain palm trees, aimed at addressing childhood malnutrition in India. She later directed the Royal Institute of Science in Bombay.