I, Soundharya Chandran, am a Sr. Scientist at a Fortune 500 company with a master’s from Rutgers University and a bachelors from VIT, Vellore.

My Leadership Style:

• Strong proponent of Diversity & Inclusion

• Chief of Staff at my company’s Asian ERG. Achievements include, diversity recruiting, newsletter creation and providing Asian perspective on business cases.

• Envisioned and implemented CEO speaker series at my company.

• Incorporated Tamil as one of the world languages in my department’s brief that is presented bi-weekly to the entire department.

• Made to recognize Pongal as an Asian festival

• Organized a concert by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, a mega fund-rising event through the New Jersey AID chapter.

• VP at VIT multicultural students’ hostel

• Active judge/mentor for competitions held at the Oakland Science & Engineering organization and at IFT.

• Presented Food Science webinars for TN college students

• Conducted several science conferences and workshops both in India and US.

• Primary coordinator for a NEET fund, that contributes to the functioning of the Kuzhumoor library founded by Anita’s brother.

• Actively involved in BATM T-SKY project.

My contribution towards Rising-the-bar initiative, will be through creation of more science-based programs and activities. I will strive for women empowerment by creating more spaces and avenues for our Tamil community women to engage.