Dr. Ritu Raman is passionate about promoting the diversification of STEM fields. As an immigrant from India who earned her citizenship half a decade ago, Dr. Raman embodies the essence of what it means to truly embrace the power of possibility. Her story is textbook immigrant success: “You come to the United States and dream of anything you want.” For Dr. Raman, this included writing children’s novels, becoming the captain of the Indian national cricket team, and joining the priesthood. While her parents encouraged all these dreams, Dr. Raman’s decision to enter science was led by an immigrant’s sense of functionality over idealism. She reflected in a 2020 MIT profile: “I was a practical 15-year-old who was an American immigrant and recognized the need to choose a major that would lead to a stable job…”

Dr. Raman, is a member of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, whose research focuses on integrating biological materials into robots, received her B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, and her M.S. and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was named as part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and is a AAAS IF/THEN ambassador.

Sampan had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Raman, a daughter of Indian parents to discuss her inspirations, research, and passion for advocacy. As an immigrant role model, Dr. Raman’s reflections speak not just to the high expectations she had to meet but also to the clear ways she’s set the standard for those young women scientists following in her path.

SAMPAN: What first drove you to discover science and engineering?

RAMAN: I was born in India and I moved to Kenya when I was really young, so my first memories were from growing up there… On the weekends, I would travel to rural villages where my dad was helping to put up communication towers, which would help them connect to the global infrastructure. It was really a compelling way to see how engineering could have a positive impact on a community.

SAMPAN: How do you come to combine your work in mechanical engineering with biological engineering?

RAMAN: When I was an undergrad, I couldn’t register [for Introduction to Aerospace Engineering], but the girl that was next to me in my dorm was taking Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, which I wasn’t particularly interested in. I went, and [the professor] was just a really compelling lecturer… What I didn’t think about was that [doctors] are prescribing something, but they are not the ones creating the new medicines. I had never thought about where those come from. I think having his perspective on the ways that bioengineers can contribute towards advances in medicine was super interesting.

SAMPAN: Your current work is on creating part-biological, part-synthetic robotic devices. What are your long term goals for that work?

RAMAN: One thing I want is for anyone who is designing a robot to consider biological materials as part of their toolkit and show that you can make robots that are more dynamically adaptive to their surroundings. Maybe they can do things like exercise or get stronger or heal from damage… basically doing some more of that complex decision making than traditional robots might be able to do.

SAMPAN: You mentioned that you spent time in your childhood in Kenya. How did those experiences impact the way you conduct work now?

RAMAN: I spent a few years in Kenya, but [I also spent time in] India and several different places in the US, East Coast and Midwest mostly… I think what that experience taught me is how similar people are everywhere, but also how much opportunity and resources can really impact somebody’s trajectory. When people are coming to MIT, I am always thinking about how we are pulling from a lot of different places and how people have very different views and perspectives, things that matter to them, and ways of learning… I think that having some more of that global perspective and having been forced to get to know a lot of people really quickly has helped me hopefully be good at that.

SAMPAN: How have your experiences in teaching or mentoring people helped shape some of the work that you do?

RAMAN: Mentoring comes a little more naturally… Even when you are 1 or 2 years into your PhD or Masters degree, you are always working with a few people who are a little bit younger, like training undergraduate… Teaching is definitely newer, especially teaching 2.001 [Mechanics and Materials course at MIT], where there’s 140 people in the class and you are lecturing… It’s a very difficult class, and you can see people struggling through it, and to me, it reminds me of when I took it my freshman year at Cornell, where it was the first thing I didn’t get an A in my entire life. It’s really nice to see that even when people are struggling, you can give them that perspective of how much time these concepts take to sink in.

SAMPAN: I’ve heard that you are a AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador (Women in STEM) , helping to advocate for diversification in STEM education. As a woman in engineering, what challenges have you faced in your career? How do you hope to help other aspiring female engineers overcome similar challenges?

RAMAN: When I was in high school or undergrad, what I was trying to prove was that people might have a stereotype about what I can or cannot be good at… Eventually I realized that it cannot be true that I am not good at this, because there are objective, quantitative measures of performance that show I am good at being a scientist. At that point, your challenge shifts. You are, in some cases, trying to prove that you are good at math, but you end up having a different challenge… There were many times where I was the most senior woman in the room. That’s been happening since I was 25, which is scary at a very young age to feel that there are not that many people above you in the rooms you are in most of the time.

SAMPAN: What advice do you have for aspiring female scientists?

RAMAN: I think the advice I would give anyone, but especially women, is that I really don’t like this narrative that you have to be super passionate about something and you have to follow that dream. I think it is important to be interested in what you do… but there are many things you have to learn about and think deeply about before you can feel passionate about something… I suggest people instead focus on what is a real need in the world that they care about and how to solve that.