Almitra Pheroze (Sidhwa) Patel ‘58, SM ‘59
Almitra Pheroze (Sidhwa) Patel ‘58, SM ‘59 is the very first South Asian MIT alumna, and the first udnergraduate and graduate woman from South Asia to receive a BS and MS from the School of Engineering. Her father firmly believed that girls could do everything boys could do and sent her to MIT to study engineering to aid him, an Indian entrepreneur, in the grinding wheel business. She received a BS in General Engineering and a MS in Materials Science and Engineering (Ceramics). Like many other South Asian students at MIT, Patel returned to India after graduating to work in her family’s company for five years. She then purused a career in an ancillary company for 26 years.
After retirement, inspired by her love of nature—and the garbage destroying it in the urban areas around her--Patel became an environmental activist and won a landmark Public Interest Litigation case in the Supreme Court of India in 1996 against the open dumping of municipal solid waste in Bangalore. Patel credits MIT for opening her eyes to social activism and showing her that she could make a difference in the world.
Almitra Pheroze (Sidhwa) Patel General Engineering Class 1958
Almitra Pheroze (Sidhwa) Patel Freshman Photograph
Almitra Pheroze (Sidhwa) Patel practicing gas welding of steel plates, one of the metal working techniques she learned in laboratory sessions. Courtesy of the MIT Museum
Article in The Tech, 1957, describing the appearance of Almitra Sidhwa Patel’s MIT life in a film short
“I learned, from these dreadfully tough overnight assignments and open-book exams, how to seek, find, and make quick decisions on a problem, how to frame a solution, how to think logically…but what I learnt more—outside the classroom—was how to live a life.” Almitra Pheroze (Sidhwa) Patel '58, SM '59
Almitra Sidhwa Thesis: The Wetting Of Alumina By Virtreous Abrasive Wheel Bonds