Mini Thomas Is Empowering Girls within the Energy Business

Thomas, an skilled in energy methods and sensible grids, is working to get extra girls into the energy and vitality trade.

She is an energetic IEEE volunteer, having labored with scholar branches and membership recruitment. As a member of the IEEE Expertise for a Sustainable Local weather Matrix Group, she shares her data about vitality, climate-resilient infrastructure, and ozone-layer restoration.

“For a lady to succeed, she wants lots of household assist,” Thomas says, as a result of many ladies’s careers are interrupted by caretaking and child-rearing tasks. She acknowledges that not all girls have the identical assist system she has—which is a part of the explanation why she is devoted to serving to others succeed.

A ardour for instructing

Thomas was born and raised in Kerala, India. Kerala college students who excelled in school had been anticipated to decide on a profession in both drugs or engineering, she says. Drugs wasn’t an choice for her, she says, as a result of she faints on the sight of blood. She was good at arithmetic, although, so she selected to pursue engineering.

Though each her dad and mom had been academics (her father taught chemistry; her mom was a language teacher), she wasn’t impressed to pursue the same path till she was an undergraduate on the College of Kerala. Her intensive note-taking throughout class made her well-liked amongst her classmates, she says, and a few would ask her to tutor them throughout examination season.

“My associates would come over to my house so I may clarify the fabric to them utilizing my notes,” she says. “Afterward, they’d inform me that they had been in a position to perceive the topic significantly better than how the professor had defined it. That’s what impressed me to grow to be a instructor.”

After incomes her bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1984, Thomas continued her schooling on the Indian Institute of Expertise, Madras. Shortly after incomes her grasp’s of know-how in electrical engineering in 1986, she started her first instructing job on the Nationwide Institute of Expertise, Calicut, additionally in Kerala.

The 12 months was a whirlwind for Thomas, who acquired married, left her job, and moved to New Delhi, the place her husband lived. As a substitute of looking for one other instructing job, she determined to pursue a doctoral diploma within the electrical engineering program on the Indian Institute of Expertise, New Delhi.

“By the point I used to be 28, I had a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, which I earned in 1990,” she says. “I quickly acquired a job at Delhi Technological College, the one different school in New Delhi that had an engineering faculty at the moment, apart from IIT. From there, I by no means seemed again.”

She taught on the college for 5 years, then left in 1995 to hitch Jamia Millia Islamia. She ultimately was promoted to steer {the electrical} engineering division.

Throughout her 11 years there, she established labs to conduct analysis in supervisory management and information acquisition (SCADA) and substation automation, collaborating with trade on tasks. In 2003 she created a curriculum for—and led the launch of—a grasp’s of know-how program in electrical energy system administration in addition to a coaching program for trade professionals. For her work, she obtained a 2015 IEEE Instructional Actions Board Meritorious Achievement Award.

In 2014 she based the college’s Heart for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to assist startups flip their concepts into prototypes and launch companies.

She obtained a proposal she couldn’t refuse in 2016: grow to be president of the Nationwide Institute of Expertise, Tiruchirappalli.

“This was an incredible honor to grow to be the primary girl president of that institute,” she says. “I used to be the one girl amongst 90 presidents of all of the establishments of nationwide significance at the moment.”

However, she says, as president, she didn’t have a lot time to show, and after 5 years, she started to overlook her time within the classroom. After her five-year time period was accomplished, she returned to Jamia Millia Islamia in 2021 as engineering dean. Since then, she has led the launch of 5 applications: three undergraduate applications (in information science, electrical and pc engineering, and VLSI) and graduate applications in information science and environmental sciences.

This 12 months she stepped down after finishing her three-year time period as dean and is focusing extra on instructing.

She teaches not less than one class every semester as a result of, she says, she finds pleasure in “imparting and giving data to younger minds.”

Mentoring girls within the energy trade

Thomas mentors doctoral college students in addition to professors who aspire to function deans or different high-level positions.

As well as, she trains mid-career girls within the energy trade on the abilities they should get promoted—to technical and senior administration roles—by the South Asia WePOWER community’s South Asia Area (SAR) 100 skilled improvement program. WePOWER is a coalition of nonprofit and authorities organizations that goal to extend the variety of girls working within the energy and vitality sectors by schooling. A 2020 World Financial institution research discovered that the share of girls in technical roles within the trade in South Asia ranges from 0.1 to 21.

The six-month-long program gives technical coaching, mentorship, and networking alternatives to 100 girls from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Thomas is one among 40 specialists who remotely educate subjects akin to transmission particulars, distribution, renewable vitality, and the significance of girls in management.

She additionally mentors girls to offer them confidence and instruments to achieve management positions as a result of “mentorship is what modified my profession trajectory,” she says. When she first started instructing, she says she was reluctant to take high-level positions. However after collaborating in a six-day management coaching on the Jawaharlal Nehru College, which was hosted by the Authorities of India’s College Grants Fee, she felt assured in her capability to maneuver up the profession ladder.

“Many ladies take a break from their careers to boost their youngsters, wrestle to steadiness their private {and professional} lives, or don’t have a assist system,” she says. “I need to impart the teachings I discovered from my experiences and the coaching I obtained. Each time I get an opportunity, I get entangled.”

Creating lifelong friendships and mentoring college students

Thomas joined IEEE in 1990 as a graduate scholar member and says she continues renewing her membership to remain updated on rising applied sciences, particularly SCADA methods.

“I discovered the whole lot about SCADA from a tutorial developed by the IEEE Energy & Power Society. There was no such materials out there at the moment,” she says.

Years later, in 2015, Thomas cowrote Energy System SCADA and Good Grids together with her buddy John McDonald, whom she met by the group. McDonald is an IEEE Life Fellow and the founder and CEO of JDM Associates in Duluth, Ga.

Thomas turned an energetic volunteer for the Delhi Technological College’s scholar department, the place she helped arrange technical talks and different occasions. When Thomas joined Jamia Millia Islamia, she revived the inactive scholar department there and served as its counselor for 14 years.

Throughout her 35 years with IEEE, she has served as chair of the Area 10 scholar actions committee and vice chair of membership improvement for IEEE Member and Geographic Actions. She was a member of the IEEE Instructional Actions and the IEEE Publication Providers and Merchandise boards.

“Creating applications that profit members makes me really feel happy,” Thomas says. “Volunteering has additionally boosted my confidence.”

She can be a member of IEEE Spectrum’s editorial advisory board.

Not solely does she attribute a lot of her skilled development to the group, she additionally has created lifelong friendships by IEEE, she says. One buddy is 2023 IEEE President Saifur Rahman, whom she met in 2000 when he spoke to the Jamia Millia Islamia scholar department.

“Our friendship has grown a lot that Saifur is like household,” she says.

When Rahman launched the IEEE Expertise for a Sustainable Local weather Matrix Group in 2022, he requested Thomas to grow to be a member. She helped create the IEEE Local weather Change Assortment on the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The next 12 months, she led the event of a local weather change taxonomy. The 620 phrases are included within the IEEE Thesaurus, which defines virtually 12,500 engineering, technical, and scientific phrases. Now she is working with a staff to increase the taxonomy by defining a whole bunch extra climate-change phrases.

“You must at all times do what you take pleasure in. For me, that’s instructing and volunteering with IEEE,” she says. “I may simply be a member, entry the technical content material, and be pleased with simply that, however I volunteer as a result of I can do issues that assist others.”