Anna Mani

About Anna Mani

Anna Mani (23 August 1918 – 16 August 2001) was an Indian physicist and meteorologist. She was the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department. She made significant contributions in the field of meteorological instrumentation. She conducted research and published numerous papers on solar radiation, ozone and wind energy measurements.

Early life

Anna Mani was born in Peerumedu, Travancore. Her father was a civil engineer. She was the seventh of eight children in her family. During her childhood, she was a voracious reader. She was impressed by the activities of Gandhi during Vaikom satyagraha. Inspired by the nationalist movement, she took to wearing only Khādī garments. She wanted to pursue medicine, but she decided in favour of physics because she liked the subject. In 1939, she graduated from the Presidency College in Madras, with a B.Sc Honors degree in physics and chemistry.

Career

After graduating from the Presidency college, she worked under Prof. C V Raman, researching the optical properties of ruby and diamond. She authored five research papers, but she was not granted a PhD because she did not have a master's degree in physics. Then she moved to Britain to study pursue physics, but she ended up studying meteorological instruments at Imperial College London. After returning to India in 1948, she joined the Meteorological department in Pune. She published numerous research papers on meteorological instrumentation. She retired as the deputy director general of the Indian Meteorological department in 1976. She authored two books, The Handbook for Solar Radiation data for India in 1980 and Solar Radiation over India in 1981. She won the K.R. Ramanathan Medal in 1987.

In 1994 she suffered from a stroke, and died on 16 August 2001 in Thiruvananthapuram.