Bibha Chowdhuri’s Forgotten Physics Legacy

Bibha Chowdhuri (born 1913), a pioneering Indian physicist, made landmark contributions to cosmic ray research, including early meson detection with D.M. Bose using photographic emulsions—work conducted years before C.F. Powell’s Nobel-winning results. She completed her MSc from Calcutta University in 1936 and later earned her PhD at University of Manchester in 1945 under P.M.S. Blackett. In 1949, Homi J. Bhabha appointed her as the first woman researcher at TIFR, after which she joined the Physical Research Laboratory and contributed to India’s major high-energy physics programme—the Kolar Gold Mine experiments.
Despite breakthroughs acknowledged internationally, wartime shortages of emulsion plates stalled her early discoveries, limiting global recognition.
Working later as an independent researcher in Kolkata, she continued publishing until late life, with recent biographies reviving her long-overlooked scientific legacy.