Veronica Rodrigues

Veronica Filomena Rodrigues (1953 – 10 November 2010) was a Kenyan-born Indian biologist. Veronica completed a B.A with honors in Microbiology from Trinity College Dublin. After being inspired by the work of Obaid Siddiqi and his co-workers, she moved to India to pursue her Ph.D. While doing her PhD, considering her exceptional work, she was offered a permanent faculty position at TIFR. She also served as a senior professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. In 2004 she received the Senior National Woman Bioscientist Award. She died in 2010 after suffering from breast cancer for five years. where she pioneered the study of coding of olfactory information in the brain. With her experience in neurobiology and behavior alongside her expertise in genetics and development she brought together a group of influential and intellectual researchers to create an olfactory circuitry. This group pioneered the research into chemosensory biology. The field still heavily relies on her standard behavioral and electrophysiological assays to measure adult and larval responses to gustatory and olfactory cues. With the development of new genetic and molecular tools to study the neural circuitry underlying behavior patterns, these assays have seen a major resurgence.

She also assumed many leadership roles in her career — first at the Department of Biological Sciences (earlier the Molecular Biology Unit) at TIFR and later, she became the Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences in TIFR Mumbai. Veronica frequently worked with pupils who had no prior knowledge of experimental biology. These inexperienced interns under her guidance developed into mature, self-assured researchers who went out to join the global network of scientists who started their careers in the Rodrigues lab. Her contribution in fostering the importance of science among youth is not only limited to the city of Mumbai. Through her leadership and tutoring skills, she also ran a biennial course in neurobiology at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. This course made a significant impact on the next generation of people, especially from Africa.

Personal life When Veronica moved to India for work, she was not an Indian citizen. She applied for Indian citizenship but only got it with much effort and difficulty twenty years after having moved to the country.