Goans in science and technology
The Indian state of Goa has given many accomplished scientists, engineers and technologists to the country and the world. This is in difference to the perception of Goans in popular culture solely as having contributed to music, cinema, sport and art.
Scientists
Notable scientists are Abbé Faria, Froilano de Mello, Dr. Skoda Afonso, and contemporary scientists like Raghunath Mashelkar and Anil Kakodkar.
Scientist Agostinho Vincente Lourence went to Germany and worked under the famous chemist Robert Bunsen.
Datta V. Naik is the director of Monmouth University and earlier did research at NASA. Ulhas Naik now heads the Delaware Biotechnology Institute where he does cutting edge research.
Engineers
Engineer A. X. Moraes worked against the crisis of floods in Gujarat in 1927. Albert Vivian D'Costa of Aldona was investigated weak bridges. William Xavier Mascarenhas, an associate of the legendary Sir Visvesvarayya, was involved in pre-independence planning of major roads, bridges and river valley projects.
Civil engineer Luis Bismark Dias is remembered for designing the town of Vasco da Gama, with its tree-lined boulevards and gardens. In the US, he has done work on devices used in colour TV receivers, and also ultrasound imaging devices.
Paul de Mello is an engineer who has earned name and fame in Brazil. His brother Dr Victor F B de Mello rose to professorships at the three principal universities in Sao Paulo.
Engineer Sumant Moolgaokar, born in Bombay, earned a name for himself in the Tata Group. In his tenure, TELCO's entry into the manufacture of passenger cars merited him being called the 'architect of TELCO'.
Dr. Rui J. P. de Figueiredo is professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mathematics, University of California, Irvine.
Mathematicians
Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function.
Doctors
There is a long list of those who have enriched the field of medicine including renowned surgeon Dr. P. S. Ramani. Dr. Sanjay Khope of Cuncolim has a surgery technique named after him - Khope's Operation. Dr. Sandra de Sa Souza has been hailed as one of India's pioneer in cochlear implant surgery, providing new hope to the totally deaf. Her father, Dr. Joe de Sa, was a well-known ENT specialist in Bombay. Dr. Luzito de Souza, her cousin, is an internationally known oncologist.
Dr. Chicot Vaz is a leading neurologist in the country. Other prominent medical specialists and surgeons include Dr. Eustace J. de Souza, US-based medico-surgeon Dr. Yvan J das Dores Silva, cancer surgeon Dr. Luis Jose de Souza, physiologist Dr. Anthony Charles Duarte-Monteiro, and late Dr. Manuel Vincente Alfredo da Costa (who has a hospital named after him in Lisbon). Dr. Arthur E de Sa of Asnora was an eminent surgeon, and accompanied Lady Edwina Mountbatten to riot-stricken areas of West Pakistan at the height of the communal frenzy after partition. Dr. Vithal Nagesh Shirodkar, of Shiroda, has the famous 'Shirodkar Technique' for opening blocked fallopian tubes and cervical cerclage. Noted cancer surgeon Dr. Ernest Borges of Ucassaim is another big name. Dr. Acacio Gabriel Viegas is credited with the discovery of the outbreak of bubonic plague in Bombay in 1896. He was responsible for saving many lives and eventually controlling the plague.
Dr. Emidio Afonso, who was also a sculptor, a violinist and an ingenious mechanic. He reconstructed with the simplest available material a simplified version of Sir J. C. Bose's crescograph.
Dada Vaidya, from a family of Ayurveda physicians, and in true family traditions never accepted any fees and on the contrary gave drugs he prescribed free. For him the art of healing was a vocation and a sacred duty. He also began a campaign towards preventing diseases.
Architects
Charles Correa has designed monuments ranging from the Kasturba Gandhi Samadhi at Pune, to Our Lady of Salvation Church in Dadar, Bombay and hotels in Andamans and Kovalam.
Science and technology in Goa today
Science is now taught in more than a thousand educational institutions. More than 500 students from Goa have obtained their doctoral degrees in various science subjects since 1966 from either the post graduate centre of the Bombay University or the Goa University.
Since 1964, this tiny state has produced more than 30 thousand science and engineering graduates. When it was a union territory, the central government had sincerely boosted efforts to promote science, technological facilities and research centres in Goa. In 1972, the central government gifted Goa the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) at Dona Paula, then came The Institute of Petroleum Safety, Health and Environment Management, (IPSHEM) in Betul under ONGC, followed by Krishi Vikas Kendra of ICAR at Old Goa. The central government chose Goa to locate the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research under the Department of Ocean Development.
See also
List of people from Goa (scientists)
References
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||