Laly A Pothen

A Post Graduate in Physical Chemistry from St. Johns' College Agra, Dr. Laly A. Pothen started her teaching career in 1981 at Bishop Moore College, Mavelikara. Before taking up the teaching career she had also acquired a degree in Education. She took her M.Phil from Mahathma Gandhi University. For her project work, she took up studies in Banana Fibre Polysester Composites. She could publish the results of her work in peer reviewed journals and present papers in International Conferences during her course period.

When her college became a Post Graduate College and she was chosen to teach the Post Graduate students. Knowing fully well the importance of research oriented studies, she encouraged her students to turn to the research field and came forward to set an example to her students by starting research in her institution for the first time. She registered herself to the Doctoral Programme of Mahathma Gandhi University under the guide ship of Dr. Sabu Thomas, a trend setter in Natural Fibre Composites research. Then there was no looking back. She finished her doctorate within the shortest time possible after publishing a record number of papers in peer reviewed journals and presenting papers in various international conferences. Under the invitation of UNESCO, she could attend a workshop in her subject in Italy during this period.

Her use of Solvatochromic studies and polarity studies for surface characterizations of natural fibres was infact a path breaking venture. The same was the case with her advanced studies on natural fibre textile composites. All these initiatives helped her to work along with great stalwarts in the field of Composites, like Prof Y W Mai of City Univesity Hong Kong, Prof Alexander Bismark of Imperial College UK, Prof Gunter Mennig of Chemnitz, Germany.

Besides conducting research studies and publishing papers, she could bring out quite a good number of book chapters and also a few books on Natuarl Fibre Composites. Even while teaching her students in her institution she helped many students to carry out their respective research works in various countries like France, Canada, Belgium and South Africa. She has a long list of publications in international journals, conference papers, book chapters, books and a patent to her credit. She was an Academic Visitor to Imperial College, London, during 2008 with a Royal Society Award. She has attended a workshop organised by UNIDO in Italy during 2000. Now she