Mini Thomas Is Empowering Women in the Power Industry

Thomas, an professional in power systems and smart grids, is working to get extra girls into the power and energy business.

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

“For a girl to succeed, she wants numerous household assist,” Thomas says, as a result of many ladies’s careers are interrupted by caretaking and child-rearing obligations. 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. Medication wasn’t an possibility for her, she says, as a result of she faints on the sight of blood. She was good at mathematics, 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 an identical path till she was an undergraduate on the University of Kerala. Her in depth note-taking throughout class made her standard 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 trainer.”

After incomes her bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1984, Thomas continued her schooling on the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Shortly after incomes her grasp’s of expertise 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 received married, left her job, and moved to New Delhi, the place her husband lived. As an alternative of trying to find one other instructing job, she determined to pursue a doctoral diploma within the electrical engineering program on the Indian Institute of Technology, 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 received a job at Delhi Technological College, the one different faculty in New Delhi that had an engineering college at the moment, apart from IIT. From there, I by no means appeared again.”

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

Throughout her 11 years there, she established labs to conduct analysis in supervisory management and data acquisition (SCADA) and substation automation, collaborating with business on initiatives. In 2003 she created a curriculum for—and led the launch of—a grasp’s of expertise program in electrical power system administration in addition to a coaching program for business professionals. For her work, she obtained a 2015 IEEE Educational Activities Board Meritorious Achievement Award.

In 2014 she based the varsity’s Center 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 ideal 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 packages: three undergraduate packages (in data science, electrical and computer engineering, and VLSI) and graduate packages 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 a minimum of 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 business

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 business on the abilities they should get promoted—to technical and senior administration roles—by the South Asia WePOWER network’s South Asia Area (SAR) 100 professional development program. WePOWER is a coalition of nonprofit and authorities organizations that intention to extend the variety of girls working within the energy and vitality sectors by schooling. A 2020 World Bank study discovered that the proportion of girls in technical roles within the business in South Asia ranges from 0.1 to 21.

The six-month-long program offers technical coaching, mentorship, and networking alternatives to 100 girls from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Thomas is one in every of 40 specialists who remotely train matters equivalent to transmission particulars, distribution, renewable energy, and the significance of women in leadership.

She additionally mentors girls to provide 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 taking part in a six-day management coaching on the Jawaharlal Nehru University, which was hosted by the Authorities of India’s University Grants Commission, she felt assured in her means to maneuver up the profession ladder.

“Many ladies take a break from their careers to boost their kids, battle to balance their personal 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. At any time when I get an opportunity, I get entangled.”

Creating lifelong friendships and mentoring college students

Thomas joined IEEE in 1990 as a graduate pupil member and says she continues renewing her membership to remain updated on emerging technologies, particularly SCADA methods.

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

Years later, in 2015, Thomas cowrote Power System SCADA and Smart Grids along 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 grew to become an energetic volunteer for the Delhi Technological University’s student branch, the place she helped arrange technical talks and different occasions. When Thomas joined Jamia Millia Islamia, she revived the inactive student branch there and served as its counselor for 14 years.

Throughout her 35 years with IEEE, she has served as chair of the Region 10 pupil actions committee and vice chair of membership improvement for IEEE Member and Geographic Activities. She was a member of the IEEE Educational Activities and the IEEE Publication Services and Products boards.

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

She can also 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 pupil 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 Climate Change Collection on the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The next 12 months, she led the event of a climate change taxonomy. The 620 phrases are included within the IEEE Thesaurus, which defines nearly 12,500 engineering, technical, and scientific phrases. Now she is working with a group to increase the taxonomy by defining a whole bunch extra climate-change phrases.

“It’s best to at all times do what you get pleasure from. 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.”