I am currently a Senior Research Scientist in the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. I am an Active Member of the Electrochemical Society, USA and have served as an Executive Committee Member and Councillor of its European Local Section. I was elected in 2002 as an invited Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation (F.W.I.F.). It was also a great honor for me to be appointed as the team leader of Czech women physicists in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd IUPAP International confereneces on women in physics in 2002 (Paris, France), 2005 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and 2008 (Seoul, Korea). My name has appeared in the Marquis' Who is Who. In 2006, I became a nominated Member of the International Advisory Board of Eurasia Conferences in Chemical Sciences.

    A main research field of mine has been the interpretation of the properties of strong electrolytes in aqueous solutions and all the involved basic topics in chemistry and physics. A proper understanding of the solution properties of strong electrolytes is important since they play important roles in many physico-chemical, electrochemical, biological, physiological, environmental, industrial and atmospheric processes. Recently, I have found that the Golden ratio found in the geometry of many sponatneous creations in the Nature, actually arise right in the core of atoms due to electrostatic reasons. It plays a direct role in the assignment of exact ionic radii from a knowledge of the interatomic distances, and in the interpretation of the lengths of the hydrogen bonds. More recently, I have found that the additivity of atomic radii hold for the bond lengths in the skeletal structures of inorganic, organic and biological molecules. Some basic papers of mine on the Golden ratio in the theory of the hydrogen atom and in assigning ionic radii, additivity of atomic radii in bond lengths and in hydration bonds of ions with the oxygen and hydrogen of water and in the lengths of the hydrogen bonds in inorganic and biochemical groups, have been published in Molecular Physics, 2005, Chemical Physics Letters in 2006 and 2007, The Open Structural Biology Journal (2008) and several in arxiv.org. Most recently (2009), I have obtained the absolute potential of the hydrogen electrode (which was arbitrarily assumed to be zero) and thereby the absolute standard redox potentials of elements are now available (in ESL, 2009).

Other fundamental research work in physical chemistry, electrochemistry, solution chemistry and physics can be found in my list of publications and significant results.

    The foundation for my above interests in science was built upon my studies for the B.Sc. degree (major subjects: Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) from Maharani's College for Women, Bangalore, University of Mysore (India); (now Maharani's Science College for Women: http://mscwb.org, University of Bangalore: http://www.bub.ernet.in), M.Sc. degree (by research) in Physical Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science (I.I.Sc.), Bangalore (India). After a few years as a Junior and then a Senior Research Assistant at the I.I.Sc., I got an award from the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which enabled me to get my Ph.D. degree (by research) in Physical Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK.

    My thesis for the Ph.D. degree was on the thermogravitational separation in solutions of electrolytes. It is this topic which provoked me to scrutinize the theory of strong electrolytes. I was dissatisfied with the complicated theory like several others and I eventually came to the conclusion that the existing idea of complete dissociation had to be abandoned in favor of the earlier idea of partial dissociation due to ARRHENIUS. During the twenty years after my Ph. D., I have found gradually that the equilibrium properties of solutions can be quantitatively explained by simple and meaningful mathematical expressions involving hydration numbers and concentrations and sizes of ions and ion-pairs in the solution. The basic paper on the typical strong electrolyte, NaCl in aqueous solutions from "zero to saturation" was published in the J. Electrochemical Society in June 1996. Further papers on many more electrolytes can be found in the full list of publications. Through this work, the theory of ionic association due to Bjerrum also got a renewed appreciation: it can be used to calculate the mean distance of closest approach of ions in the solution. My webpage also brings many Tables of data on the degrees of dissociation and hydration numbers of aqueous strong electrolytes, which can be used for thermodynamic calculations (without the need for acitvity or osmotic coefficients, which are evaluated based on the assumption of complete dissociation).

    It was a great honor for me that my above work on the thermodynamics of aqueous strong electrolytes was recoginzed by the award of an Invitation Plenary Lecturership by the Organizing Committee of the "Symposium Svante Arrhenius" in Uppsala, in November 2003, commemorating the Centenary of the award of the Nobel Prize to Arrhenius. The full text of this Lecture is in this webpage, and with additional data has appeared in Electroanalysis, 2006. 

    Personally, I consider myself very fortunate to be a scientist and I have always enjoyed both experimental and theoretical research. I feel that physico-chemical phenomena follow simple mathematical rules and therefore only as much mathematics must be used as to bring out the science governing the phenomena (- Occam's rule!). I would like also to add that if one has the talent to grasp the principles of science and mathematics, it will be a pity not to cultivate this unique gift to explore the many dark corridors in science and the workings of Nature. In this venture one has to take both failure and success with equal spirit, since the former contributes by showing the path to avoid.

    For all what I have done so far, I am grateful to the many in India (especially to my late grandfather Prof. P. R. Ayyar, Research Professor of Chemistry, I.I.Sc., Bangalore), in Cambridge (UK) and other places in the world which I have visited, who enabled me to cultivate the desire and enjoyment of working in Science. I am equally obliged to the scientists here (in Czech Republic) for giving me the moral support. Turning to my family, I am very fortunate to have had their loving encouragement. My special gratitude is also due to the many scientists in the world who have supported, appreciated and criticized my ideas during my several journeys abroad to many countries (USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and India) for lectures at conferences, and seminars and talks at other Institutions: (IISC (Bangalore, India), Univ. of Pisa (Italy), Univ of Utrecht (Netherlands), Univ. of Pierre & Marie Curie (Paris), Johns Hopkins Univ., UMBC, Towson Univ, and Stevenson Univ. (all in Baltimore), NIST (Gaithersberg), MIT and Harvard Univ. (Cambridge, MA), Tufts Univ (Medford, MA), Univ. of Waterloo (Waterloo, Canada), Chemical Heritage Foundation (Philadelphia), Sofia Univ. and Univ of Kyoto (Japan), Univs.of Regensburg, Aachen and Dresden, Hahn Meittner Inst., Berlin (all in Germany), Univ. of Uppsala (Sweden) and have visited a few others.

     I have enjoyed traveling and exploring many countries and notable amongst them was a trip which I undertook after seeing the fascinating paintings and photos of the arctic scenery in the Scott Polar Research Institute (http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/), next door to our Lensfield Road Chemical Labs. in Cambridge. It was a 20-day trip by boat from England (in August 1967, ) to the land of the midnight Sun, Spitzbergen (video in: http://www.cruisenorway.com/spitsbergen): (by 'Jupiter' from Newcastle at 55^oN to Bergen at 60^oN and back) along the Norwegian coast (by 'Nordstjernen' from Bergen to Tromso at 69^oN and back from Tromso to Bergen by 'Ragnvaldjarl', from Tromso to Spitzbergen and back (by a small  postal school boat: 'Skule' which went once a month), stopping at Bjornoya (at ~ 74.5^oN), and reaching upto 80.2^oN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Topographic_map_of_Svalbard.svg) in open sea above the northern tip in Spitzbergen. I visited (in Norway) the many picturesque coastal towns and the Lofotens and (in Spitzbergen) Longyear Byen (capital at ~78^oN; after disembarking from the boat I saw coming in front of us, the famous polar bear hunter, Hilmar Nois!), Ny Alesund (at 79^oN, Amundsen and others' base for their expedition to the North Pole), Kongs fjord, Lilliehook fjord, Virgohamn (see: http://www.sysselmannen.no/hovedEnkel.aspx?m=45275), (Andre's base at ~79.8^oN, for the balloon expedition in 1896/1897 to the North Pole, with Svante Arrhenius as the hydrogarpher) and many other interesting fjords, lakes, bird cliffs and glaciers. This trip turned out to be more adventurous by my losing at Tromso my baggage with all my equipment, except my handbag with my cheque book etc. and my camera, and learning later by a telegram for me received at the World's northernmost postoffice at Ny Alesund that the suitcase will be waiting for me at Tromso on my return journey!