The Rohini Godbole way of teaching, talking and engaging with students Premium

Professor Rohini Godbole, a pioneering physicist, remembered for her humility, mentorship, and dedication to supporting women in science.

Professor Rohini Godbole lived a simple life with “no arrogance,” says Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel, an ecologist who had discussed everything but physics with Prof. Godbole during her postdoctoral stint at the Indian Institute of Science in 2021. Pokharel’s path crossed with Godbole in 2013 frequently before she met Godbole in person in 2021 to discuss her campus newsletter works.

“I started asking random questions that came to my mind such as what inspired her to be a physicist,” says Pokharel, now an associate professor at Kyoto University, and she would generously share her insights. Pokharel mostly found Godbole soft-spoken and wearing a demure salwar, kurta and chappal that went with her demeanour. Yet, the kind professor rarely minced words such as when it came to taking science beyond glass ceilings.

Pokharel’s recollection will resonate with many students who knew Rohini Godbole, pioneering particle physicist who passed away recently in Pune. Prof. Godbole joined the IISc in 1995 and retired as professor in 2018, as a teacher and faculty-mentor.

One of the issues that Prof. Godbole was personally invested in was how women often dealt with careers. “She was passionate about supporting women who had taken a break to come back to science and do research,” recalls Professor Annapoorni Subramaniam, who was a junior faculty at the now WISE-KIRAN committee with Prof. Godbole. Subramaniam is now Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

Prof. Godbole found the right balance when convincing both the student and the administrative side of the institute to help finish the research quickly.  “She would make sure to tell the women candidates that they have a mentor for a purpose, but they had to carry out their own research and carry forward their own ideas,” Subramaniam recalls.

Ritesh Kumar Singh, the first PhD student of Prof. Godbole in IISc, vividly remembers that Prof. Godbole always insisted on accepting one’s ignorance rather than being in denial about the situation when one was stuck midway through their research. According to Singh, this acceptance is the first step to finding a solution. “You have to acknowledge that there is a problem, not just in our understanding of physics but also society in general,” says Singh, now an associate professor in the Physics Department at the Indian Institute of Science, Kolkata. 

Singh, as a PhD student with Prof. Godbole, interacted with the accomplished physicist in 1999. He felt it was his good fortune that he could have sessions one-on-one with her in which Prof. Godbole generously shared her vast knowledge and wisdom. “We sat across the table, and I had to show what calculations I had done on paper. And then she’ll say you made a mistake, and write out the entire solution on that same piece of paper,” Singh remembers.