Chromosome woman, nomad scientist E.K. Janaki Ammal, a life 1897-1984 / Savithri Preetha Nair.

First South Asia edition 2023

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword / by Pnina Geraldine Abir-Am -- Tellicherry : modern Thiya family -- Madras I : science and politics in a cosmopolitan city -- Michigan I : first lessons in internationalism -- Michigan II : private life of plants -- England : Love, tulips and chiasmata -- Madras II : flora of South India -- Trivandrum : teaching interlude -- Trivandrum-Coimbatore-Krusadai : unforgettable sojourn -- Coimbatore I : dreaming of Russia -- Coimbatore II : making order out of chaos -- Great Britain I : doing science in exile -- Merton-Kew : chromosome atlas of flowering plants -- Wisley I : maker of tetraploids -- Nepal : pilgrim of science -- Wisley II : craze for chromosome counts -- Delhi : Director of Agriculture -- Wisley III : "wanderings" of flowering plants -- Paris-London : Camellia Trail -- Calcutta : modernising botany in India -- Oakridge-Ann Arbor-Princeton : tracer atoms and agriculture -- Kandy : humid tropics -- Lucknow-Allahabad : Central Botanical Laboratory -- Jammu-Jorhat : border-zones of mixed flora -- Jammu & Kashmir : high altitude flora, polyploidy and variation -- Trombay : atomic interlude -- Madras III : primitive cultivars -- Madras IV : forest tracts and a protest movement -- Madras-Nilgiris : hill tribes and secret herbs -- Madras V : final salaams -- Epilogue: Portrait of a nomad woman scientist.

"This is the first in-depth and analytical biography of an Asian woman scientist - Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal (1897-1984). Using a wide range of archival sources, it presents a dazzling portrait of the twentieth century through the eyes of a pioneering Indian woman scientist, who was highly mobile, and a life that intersected with several significant historical events-the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II, the struggle for Indian Independence, the social relations of science movement, the Lysenko affair, the green revolution, the dawn of environmentalism, and the protest movement against a proposed hydro-electric project in the Silent Valley in the 1970s and 80s. The volume brings into focus her work on mapping the origin and evolution of cultivated plants across space and time, to contribute to a grand history of human evolution, her works published in peer-reviewed Indian and international journals of science, as well as her co-authored work, Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945), considered a bible by practitioners of the discipline. It also looks at her correspondence with major personalities of the time, including political leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, biologists like Cyril D. Darlington, J. B. S. Haldane and H. H. Bartlett, geographers like Carl Sauer, and social activists like Hilda Seligman, who all played significant roles in shaping her world view and her science. A story spanning over North America, Europe and Asia, this biography is a must-have for scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, gender studies, especially those studying women in the sciences, history, and South Asian studies. It will also be a delight for the general reader"-- Provided by publisher.