Dr Meenakshi Wadhwa
Curator of meteoritics
Field Museum, Chicago

Meenakshi Wadhwa won the Fellowship for her analysis of solar wind brought back by the Genesis spacecraft which stayed in space for two years and collected particles discharged from the sun. "It will give us an idea of the origin of the earth," she says.

It is because of her efforts that the Field Museum, one of the largest natural history museums in the world, acquired a 5,000-pound Micromass IsoProbe mass spectrometer to analyse and date meteorites.

Wadhwa studied geology at Punjab University and did her PhD in planetary sciences in the US. "After my master's degree I decided to get a PhD in planetary sciences because I felt I would be limiting myself by just learning about the earth."

Her advice for children interested in sciences is: "Follow through on your interests and try not to care about peer pressure.

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