Mini Thomas Is Empowering Women in the Power Industry

Thomas, an expert in power systems and smart grids, is working to get more women into the power and energy industry.

She is an active IEEE volunteer, having worked with student branches and membership recruitment. As a member of the IEEE Technology for a Sustainable Climate Matrix Organization, she shares her knowledge about energy, climate-resilient infrastructure, and ozone-layer recovery.

“For a woman to succeed, she needs a lot of family support,” Thomas says, because many women’s careers are interrupted by caretaking and child-rearing responsibilities. She acknowledges that not all women have the same support system she has—which is part of the reason why she is dedicated to helping others succeed.

A passion for teaching

Thomas was born and raised in Kerala, India. Kerala students who excelled at school were expected to choose a career in either medicine or engineering, she says. Medicine wasn’t an option for her, she says, because she faints at the sight of blood. She was good at mathematics, though, so she chose to pursue engineering.

Although both her parents were teachers (her father taught chemistry; her mother was a language instructor), she wasn’t inspired to pursue a similar path until she was an undergraduate at the University of Kerala. Her extensive note-taking during class made her popular among her classmates, she says, and some would ask her to tutor them during exam season.

“My friends would come over to my home so I could explain the material to them using my notes,” she says. “Afterward, they would tell me that they were able to understand the subject much better than how the professor had explained it. That’s what inspired me to become a teacher.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1984, Thomas continued her education at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Shortly after earning her master’s of technology in electrical engineering in 1986, she began her first teaching job at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, also in Kerala.

The year was a whirlwind for Thomas, who got married, left her job, and moved to New Delhi, where her husband lived. Instead of searching for another teaching job, she decided to pursue a doctoral degree in the electrical engineering program at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

“By the time I was 28, I had a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, which I earned in 1990,” she says. “I soon got a job at Delhi Technological University, the only other college in New Delhi that had an engineering school at that time, other than IIT. From there, I never looked back.”

She taught at the university for five years, then left in 1995 to join Jamia Millia Islamia. She eventually was promoted to lead the electrical engineering department.

During her 11 years there, she established labs to conduct research in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and substation automation, collaborating with industry on projects. In 2003 she created a curriculum for—and led the launch of—a master’s of technology program in electrical power system management as well as a training program for industry professionals. For her work, she received a 2015 IEEE Educational Activities Board Meritorious Achievement Award.

In 2014 she founded the school’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to help startups turn their ideas into prototypes and launch businesses.

She received an offer she couldn’t refuse in 2016: become president of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli.

“This was a great honor to become the first woman president of that institute,” she says. “I was the only woman among 90 presidents of all the institutions of national importance at that time.”

But, she says, as president, she didn’t have much time to teach, and after five years, she began to miss her time in the classroom. After her five-year term was completed, she returned to Jamia Millia Islamia in 2021 as engineering dean. Since then, she has led the launch of five programs: three undergraduate programs (in data science, electrical and computer engineering, and VLSI) and graduate programs in data science and environmental sciences.

This year she stepped down after completing her three-year term as dean and is focusing more on teaching.

She teaches at least one class each semester because, she says, she finds joy in “imparting and giving knowledge to young minds.”

Mentoring women in the power industry

Thomas mentors doctoral students as well as professors who aspire to serve as deans or other high-level positions.

In addition, she trains mid-career women in the power industry on the skills they need to get promoted—to technical and senior management roles—through the South Asia WePOWER network’s South Asia Region (SAR) 100 professional development program. WePOWER is a coalition of nonprofit and government organizations that aim to increase the number of women working in the power and energy sectors through education. A 2020 World Bank study found that the percentage of women in technical roles in the industry in South Asia ranges from 0.1 to 21.

The six-month-long program provides technical training, mentorship, and networking opportunities to 100 women from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Thomas is one of 40 experts who remotely teach topics such as transmission details, distribution, renewable energy, and the importance of women in leadership.

She also mentors women to give them confidence and tools to reach leadership positions because “mentorship is what changed my career trajectory,” she says. When she first began teaching, she says she was reluctant to take high-level positions. But after participating in a six-day leadership training at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, which was hosted by the Government of India’s University Grants Commission, she felt confident in her ability to move up the career ladder.

“Many women take a break from their careers to raise their children, struggle to balance their personal and professional lives, or don’t have a support system,” she says. “I want to impart the lessons I learned from my experiences and the training I received. Whenever I get a chance, I get involved.”

Creating lifelong friendships and mentoring students

Thomas joined IEEE in 1990 as a graduate student member and says she continues renewing her membership to stay up to date on emerging technologies, specifically SCADA systems.

“I learned everything about SCADA from a tutorial developed by the IEEE Power & Energy Society. There was no such material available at that time,” she says.

Years later, in 2015, Thomas cowrote Power System SCADA and Smart Grids with her friend John McDonald, whom she met through the organization. McDonald is an IEEE Life Fellow and the founder and CEO of JDM Associates in Duluth, Ga.

Thomas became an active volunteer for the Delhi Technological University’s student branch, where she helped organize technical talks and other events. When Thomas joined Jamia Millia Islamia, she revived the inactive student branch there and served as its counselor for 14 years.

During her 35 years with IEEE, she has served as chair of the Region 10 student activities committee and vice chair of membership development for IEEE Member and Geographic Activities. She was a member of the IEEE Educational Activities and the IEEE Publication Services and Products boards.

“Creating programs that benefit members makes me feel satisfied,” Thomas says. “Volunteering has also boosted my confidence.”

She is also a member of IEEE Spectrum’s editorial advisory board.

Not only does she attribute much of her professional growth to the organization, she also has created lifelong friendships through IEEE, she says. One friend is 2023 IEEE President Saifur Rahman, whom she met in 2000 when he spoke to the Jamia Millia Islamia student branch.

“Our friendship has grown so much that Saifur is like family,” she says.

When Rahman launched the IEEE Technology for a Sustainable Climate Matrix Organization in 2022, he asked Thomas to become a member. She helped create the IEEE Climate Change Collection on the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The following year, she led the development of a climate change taxonomy. The 620 words are included in the IEEE Thesaurus, which defines almost 12,500 engineering, technical, and scientific terms. Now she is working with a team to expand the taxonomy by defining hundreds more climate-change terms.

“You should always do what you enjoy. For me, that’s teaching and volunteering with IEEE,” she says. “I could just be a member, access the technical content, and be happy with just that, but I volunteer because I can do things that help others.”