Janaki Ammal
| Janaki Ammal | |
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Janaki Ammal
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| Native name | Malayalam: [ജാനകി അമ്മാൾ] |
| Born |
4 November 1897 Tellicherry, Kerala |
| Died | 7 February 1984 Madras, Tamil Nadu |
| Residence | India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Fields | Botany, Cytology |
| Institutions | University Botany Laboratory, Madras |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Thesis | Chromosome Studies in Nicandra Physaloides |
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Janaki Ammal Edathil Kakkat (4 November 1897 – 7 February 1984) was an Indian botanist who conducted scientific research in cytogenetics and phytogeography. Her most notable work involves those on sugarcane and the eggplant. She has collected various valuable plants of medicinal and economic value from the rain forests of Kerala.
Janaki Ammal was born in 1897 in Tellichery, Kerala. Her father was Dewan Bahadur Edavalath Kakkat Krishnan, sub-judge of the Madras Presidency. Her mother, Devi (1864-1941) was an illegitimate daughter of John Child Hannyngton and Kunchi Kurumbi. She had six brothers and five sisters. In her family, girls were encouraged to engage in intellectual pursuits and in the fine arts, but Ammal chose to study botany. After schooling in Tellichery, she moved to Madras where she obtained the bachelor's degree from Queen Mary's College, and an honours degree in botany from Presidency College in 1921. Under the influence of teachers at the Presidency College, Janaki Ammal acquired a passion for cytogenetics.
Ammal taught at Women's Christian College, Madras, with a sojourn as a Barbour Scholar at the University of Michigan in the US where she obtained her master's degree in 1925. Returning to India, she continued to teach at the Women's Christian College. She went to Michigan again as the first Oriental Barbour Fellow and obtained her D.Sc. in 1931. Janaki is mentioned among Indian Americans of the Century in an India Currents magazine article published on January 1, 2000, by S.Gopikrishna & Vandana Kumar: "In an age when most women didn't make it past high school, would it be possible for an Indian woman to obtain a Ph.D. at one of America's finest public universities and also make seminal contributions to her field? The Kerala born Ammal was arguably the first woman to obtain a Ph.D. in botany in the U.S. (1931), and remains one of the few Asian women to be conferred a D.Sc. (honoris causa) by her alma mater, the University of Michigan. During her time at Ann Arbor she lived in the Martha Cook Building, a all-female residence hall and worked with Harley Harris Bartlett, Professor at the Department of Botany. She evolved a cross known as "Janaki Brengal", brengal being the Indian name for eggplant. Her Ph.D. thesis titled "Chromosome Studies in Nicandra Physaloides" was published in 1932.
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