On the professional side…
Dr. Meera Chandrasekhar obtained a B.Sc. degree from M.G.M. College, Udupi, an M.Sc. from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India, and a Ph. D. from Brown University, Providence, RI (1976). After a post doctoral fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institut in Stuttgart, Germany, she came to the University of Missouri, Columbia in 1978, where she rose through the faculty ranks, and served as a Professor of Physics and Astronomy till her retirement in 2019. She currently holds the title of Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita.
Dr. Chandrasekhar’s research interests are in the area of optical spectroscopy of semiconductors, superconductors, and conjugated polymers, with an emphasis on high pressure studies. She has a strong interest in the education of young students, both at the college and K-12 levels. She has developed and conducted hands-on physics programs for students in grades 5-12 and summer institutes for K-12 teachers since 1992. She has received several awards for these activities.
On the personal side…
Meera Chandrasekhar was born in India. Her father C. Chandrapal was an officer in the Indian Army, and her mother Kusuma was a homemaker. Her family lived in several Indian cities until she was 13, when her parents decided that a single location was the best option for the education of Meera and her brother Ram. They built a house in Udupi, a small town on the west coast of the southern state of Karnataka. Meera finished high school and college there.
Meera then started her own journeys in 1968, beginning with a two-year stint at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, where she received her Master’s degree in Physics. She then travelled to Brown University in Providence, R.I. to receive her Ph.D. in Physics, and then on to the Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung in Stuttgart, Germany to work on a post-doctoral Fellowship. There she met and married H.R. Chandrasekhar, also a physicist, and they moved to the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO in 1978. Both retired as professors of physics after working for nearly four decades at the University of Missouri. They have three daughters, Tara, Rajni and Indu.
Apart from research and teaching of physics, Meera has an active interest in Indian culture, photography, and sewing, particularly quilting, embroidery and cross-stitch. The photographs above were taken during her trip to Cape Town, South Africa, and Chobe National Forest, Botswana, in 2018. Other pages on this website showcase her sewing projects and her involvement in Indian classical dance.