Women @ FIZ continues: Interview with Dr. Madhurima Deb

Karlsruhe, March 19 2025 —International Women's Day is over, but our interview series “Women @ FIZ”, featuring female colleagues at FIZ Karlsruhe who work in science and science management, continues. The current interview introduces Dr. Madhurima Deb, who works as a Senior Researcher at the Berlin branch of FIZ Karlsruhe. Among other things, she is responsible for the development of the MaRDI portal and is the contact person for doctoral students.

Dr. Madhurima Deb's background is highly interdisciplinary: she completed her PhD in nanotechnology at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and previously worked for several years in metallurgical engineering and materials science. Her particular passion is environmental applications, for example she has worked on the development of electronic sensor prototypes for monitoring toxic heavy metals or gases.

The scientific fields in which Madhurima Deb works are not only interdisciplinary - they are also very clearly male domains. As the only woman, it can sometimes feel strange, reports Dr. Deb; she is also someone who always questions herself. “I often had the feeling that as a woman, but also as a person, I had to prove something to other people.” This was already the case at school, where the distribution was also clearly male-dominated. “I always had the feeling that I had to prove that I belonged there,” says Dr. Deb today, and she doubts that men have similarly pronounced self-doubt in corresponding situations.

Fortunately, she has not encountered overt sexism in her career, but rather insinuations that something is easier for her precisely because she is a woman. However, she also says that there is still a lot to learn about how to talk about equality, especially in her country of origin, India. The stereotypes are there, but the language is more subtle.
Madhurima Deb also has a clear message for young women who are starting their career in the academic world and perhaps in a male-dominated field: “Be patient, because there will always be setbacks, that's normal. Keep an open mind, be curious and be fearless!”

More information about Madhurima‘s area of research and the MaRDI project is available here and here.

Watch the whole interview at Youtube.