Preeti Aghalayam’s journey from an IIT Madras student to the head of an IIT campus is a story of education, research and years of work in academics. She later went to the United States for higher studies and earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island. Aghalayam studied Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and completed her BTech in 1995.
Academic Career Progression
After completing her studies, she began her academic career at IIT Bombay as a faculty member. She subsequently returned to IIT Madras, where she continued her work in teaching and research in chemical engineering.
Aghalayam’s career has taken her from the classrooms of IIT Madras to teaching, research and academic leadership. Her career reflects how an engineering education can open opportunities across teaching, research and academic administration. For students, her journey offers a simple lesson: an IIT degree does not have to mark the end of the learning journey. For Aghalayam, it became the beginning of a career that eventually took her from being an IIT Madras student to helping build an IIT campus outside India.
Because she returned to her alma mater as a faculty member before taking on a leadership role at its first international campus, her journey also stands out.
