Rohini Godbole: a passion for high-energy physics, gender equity

Collider physics studies the outcome of high-energy collisions between microscopic particles such as protons or electrons to learn about the fundamental constituents of our universe. If one mentions this subject in the context of India, the name of Rohini Godbole will be among the first to come up. Prof Godbole passed away on October 25 after a brief illness. She was 71.

Born into a middle-class Pune family committed to education and learning, she became an internationally renowned theoretical physicist. Her parents supported her career choice but she faced condescension and gender bias from professional colleagues at crucial stages of her career. Yet it was not in her nature to be discouraged. She got through the difficult times with energy and determination, with a passion for research and an ability to inspire students. In time, she won global recognition as an accomplished researcher, educator, policymaker, and administrator of science.

Paving the way

A graduate of S.P. College in Pune, Prof Godbole got a master’s degree at IIT Bombay and went on to do a PhD at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (now Stony Brook University) in the U.S. During the 1970s, the physics department under the leadership of Chinese-American Nobel laureate C.N. Yang had developed a top-class doctoral programme. Unlike Ivy League colleges that could be prejudiced against students from India in those days, Stony Brook was more open-minded. In fact, it quickly became enthusiastic about Indian students, largely due to the success of early recruits such as Prof Godbole.

Thus she helped pave the way for many others (including myself) to study at the same institution, which I joined a few years later. Our small contingent, newly arrived from India and quite nervous, was fortunate to encounter her as we entered the department on our first day. Her warm welcome contrasted sharply with the standoffish attitude of some other Indian seniors. In the subsequent years she continued to offer us advice and encouragement with a characteristic generosity of spirit.

Prof Godbole was popular with both faculty members and students at Stony Brook and was perceived as one of their most talented students. Yet, when she completed her doctorate in 1979, she declined postdoctoral offers from the U.S. and Europe and returned to work at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. I remember the day her first publication from India reached us in Stony Brook. That she could continue to carry out high-quality research convinced many of us a career back home was a valid option, and we were inspired to eventually head back ourselves.

Tough time

Her early days in India were not easy. Despite excellent work, she was told she lacked the talent to become a high-quality independent researcher. She joined Bombay University where she had a heavy teaching load even as the system was indifferent to her research, although she acknowledged the support and mentorship of some senior colleagues.

After a heavy day of teaching she still had the energy to commute across town to TIFR and carry on joint research with the faculty there. Without even a small desk at which to work, she remained focused on research and did not complain about what the rest of us saw as gender-based discrimination. In 1995 she was offered a faculty position at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, where her life as a researcher became less stressful and she could recruit and guide doctoral students. At this stage her career soared and she soon became a celebrity.

A cut above the rest

Rohini Godbole was a classic “elementary particle phenomenologist” — a scientist who studies phenomena that are observed at particle colliders. Her research papers offered interpretations of experimental observations at laboratories like Fermilab in the U.S. and CERN in Geneva, and proposed the so-called experimental signatures for theoretical models that are used to test their validity. She co-authored a textbook on supersymmetric models of particle physics, for which evidence is currently being sought at colliders.

She was often invited to sit on panels and working groups. For example, in 2012 she was the seniormost among only four Indians in a study group commissioned by CERN that produced a 600-page report on the feasibility of upgrading the Large Hadron Collider to include electron beams.

By this time she was personally known to all the leading particle physicists around the world, and was frequently invited as a keynote speaker at international conferences on high-energy physics. She became a fellow of the national academies and received numerous recognitions, including awards from the governments of India and France. As a visiting professor at European universities, she taught graduate courses on the themes of her research work.

At some point it became evident she had out-performed other Indian colleagues in her field, including those who had discouraged her decades earlier. She spoke openly of the hurdles she had faced in the past, but was never embittered by the experience — nor did she ever gloat after achieving worldwide success.

Always with a smile

Prof Godbole was by this time well-placed to be a role model for young researchers, particularly women scientists struggling — as she once had — against gender bias and negative attitudes. She cheerfully took on this responsibility and became an advocate for women in science. While continuing to do high-quality research, she founded the ‘Women in Science Panel’ of the Indian Academy of Sciences and became its first Chair. She was a plenary speaker at the first International Conference on Women in Physics, in Paris in 2001. In a short autobiographical note, she wrote about the experience:

“I was invited to speak about my experience as a woman physicist in India who had achieved some measure of success, and it resonated with the audience. Women from Ghana, Mauritius, Egypt came to me and said that when Western women talk, we feel that they are from a different culture, but when we listen to you we feel – if she can do it, we can do it too!”

This experience led her to co-edit a now-famous compilation of career profiles of nearly a hundred Indian women scientists, ‘Lilavati’s Daughters’, and she gave numerous talks and wrote articles on gender-related issues in science.

On a few occasions I had the opportunity to sit in committee meetings with her, and observed her remarkable style of functioning. Despite being a talkative person in public spaces, she was an alert listener at meetings and would only express her opinions after carefully absorbing the facts. Her remarks were direct and pointed and she fought vigorously for what she believed to be right, but always in constructive language and with a smile.

Let me conclude with a quote from an email circulated at CERN just hours after she passed away in Pune. “It is with profound sadness that we have learned about the passing of Rohini Godbole. A brilliant phenomenologist and a visionary leader, Rohini has inspired students and researchers across the world.”

Sunil Mukhi is a theoretical physicist at IISER Pune who carries out research in quantum field theory and string theory.