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Hi, good afternoon. Today is June 10th, 2021 and right now it's about 3pm Central Standard Time. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr.

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Lalitha Raman, who has won numerous awards in mentorship and education for her various fields of expertise, including Boots-2-Business and SCOREs' Excellent Service Award. From STEM academia and radiation physics to local government work recognized by multiple

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mayors and acting as an accountant for the Houston Parks Department, Dr. Raman really has done it all. Your desire to help the community can be seen through you’re actions and how you have

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given back. I hope that your stories and reflections on your experiences can illuminate, you know, what sort of community work towards educating people can empower in Houston, through your long history of engaging with them.

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You certainly have a lot of experience under your belt, and I really hope this interview can reflect at least a portion of all the work you've done. So thank you for taking the time out of your day to be interviewed. Thank you for inviting me.

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And it will be a pleasure working with you because I think you are as enthusiastic as I was when I was young, so I think that's a good deal, so— Hopefully, you know, that youthful inspiration will come. I guess I would love if we could start this

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interview by talking a little bit about your time in STEM-related academia first, both at the University of Madras in India and Michigan State University. So what made you choose to pursue physics in higher education?

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Well, you know, to begin with, I have to tell you that my family, my parents, and grand parents, originally had gone to Burma. I was born in Myanmar, Burma- was Myanmar, and my father was born

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there, so we were there for so many years. And then, during World War II, we migrated back to India. And it was an experience because the family was so well settled and all of a sudden, now we were totally

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uprooted and we had to start everything fresh. So, coming to India and starting up, the only thing my father believed in was that we have to

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have a good education, and that we need to be fluent in English, whether we write or we study, and we were told we should speak English at home and that's how we were brought up. And because my father, and

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grandfather, were all educated, they were graduates from college, even in those days. So with that in mind, my father felt like we needed education. So I decided to continue my education.

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I was originally thinking of learning statistics, but then I ended up, in Physics. The college gave me a degree program in physics, so I studied there. And it was a special program

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where you study for three years, and you get a degree called Honors, Physics Honors, and the beauty of that is you only have one chance to appear for the exam. If you flunk out, you got only a recommended degree, which

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was no good, I did very well on there. And then I was thinking of either doing a Master's, or doing something else and that's what made me go into research. So I went from college straight into research, Bhabha Atomic Energy,

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because that was the big thing in those days. Bhabha Atomic Energy was a new field and lots of young people were moving in there. And there were lots and lots of young people from all over the India.

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I joined Bhabha Atomic Energy, and there was a new field, totally new field- radiation protection. After the World War II

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bombing, a lot of people had suffered damage due to radiation, people were exposed to radiation, ingested or exposed- just radiation. So we were in the field and we felt like as more and more use of

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radiation is going to come either for industrial or for medical, that people who are using it, workers in the field have to be protected. So we came up with a lot of new regulations on radiation protection

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and we also started training people because that was the earlier way of treating cancer. People had just started using cesium cobalt machines to treat cancer. And so we used to design

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labs and kind of buildings, there were such thick walls and we had to have protective ware, like vests, shields. We came up with all that and then the industrial use of

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radioactivity started coming. They used to carry small cameras with the iridium and go and measure different pipes for cracks. So again, we had to protect the people tech how to use it.

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And when I was there, I saw a lot of people going into nuclear reactors and producing a lot of energy. And that was the first reactor they had in Bhabha Atomic Energy where they were producing isotopes.

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I got more interested, and many of my colleagues were coming to the U.S. or going to Canada or UK, for some kind of one year study. They will go there for a year and come back.

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I didn't want that; I wanted to continue a research program and I applied to several universities in the U.S. And being short of funds, there were several that did give me admission, but they said, you have to be here for one quarter,

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and then we will consider giving you financial assistance. I got admission in two universities where they offered me assistantship when I landed.

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I went to Michigan State, it was a very small biophysics department. I didn't want to do anything in medical because I was so sad to see people getting exposed to cancer and people not recovering from it.

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They were dying actually. I would get too attached to the patient if I was doing that, and it would make me sad to see that there was no hope. So I said, "No, no, let me do basic physics".

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So I came and started studying Biophysics and my professor was starting to look at membranes, that's what he was interested in. My major professor, I worked with was Dr. Haug. He was from Germany and he had done his postdoc

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at Caltech., he was more into energy transfers. How one can transfer energy from one molecule to another, that's how, a lot of chemotherapy works. They have

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isotopes they give patients and then the energy kills the bacteria or the bad part of the cells. We started working on that and I got my PhD in Biophysics.

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And one of my professors was the first one that found cisplatinum compound that was the first chemical therapy for people with cancer and so all this motivated me a lot. Then I said, "Okay, after four years of being in there, it was

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time to move on". And I said, "Okay, I still want to be in research" and I found a very good opportunity at Carnegie Mellon University. The university

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was so small, hardly 10,000 students, but they had a very nice program for research. This was with the Physics department, and I started working up there.

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I was looking at structures, because, you know, nerve structures were not understood at that time. How were the nerves built up? One of the things I started working with was the

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structure of nerves, especially the thighs, that was one of the hard one. I looked at nerves with X-ray diffraction, and see what kind of structure was in the in the nerve. We were starting to look at retina, you know, see

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how that retina would be. And my professor was interested in the optic nerves, not the retina, The only way you can get optic nerves was to go through the slaughterhouse and

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get cattle eyeballs. Oh, that was scary because they told me, I have to go to big cattle yards, where they were slaughtering all these animals.

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Thank God, I didn't see any of them being killed, but I would just collect the nerves, so it was kind of a good experience working there. There were quite a few professors at that Mellon Institute.

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It was a very famous institute in Pittsburgh because in Mellon Institute they did a lot of research for many chemical companies. I started working with the optic nerve for a while. And then after three years, I said, okay, now, I was

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kind of a little tired of working as postdoc. I said, "maybe I can find something else". I got an opportunity again to work with membranes, this time it was in Houston.

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Wow. Right, I tell you, coming from Pittsburgh to Houston was totally different because Pittsburgh is small and Baylor was not exactly like a huge campus as Michigan State MSU had, like 40,000 students.

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I lived in the dormitory for two years and so I had a lot of friends in different areas. And that's where I met a lot of anthropologists. They were all,

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Peace Corps volunteers, some had gone to India or to Africa and all that. I heard a lot about cultural anthropology, and archaeological stuff. I even met a gentleman who used

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to be in Alaska and studied. So, anyway, from there, I moved to Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh was a much smaller university compared to MSU. There my professor, was Dr.

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Worthington. Believe it or not, he was another foreigner, just like me, he was from Australia. So he had done a lot of work on structure of nerves, he was a very smart man, very quiet, but very good to the students.

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From there, I moved down to Baylor College. I was in the Ophthalmology department at Baylor for two years studying retina. And here, again, we had to go to the slaughterhouse and collect a lot of eyeballs,

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to look at the retina. You will sit in the dark with the red light, and then try to collect all the retina and analyze it. There were two things that we were doing- we put in some dyes, like fluorescent dyes, which when you look under the

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microscope, you could see the color and see that the retina was intact, the rod was intact. And from there, we would extract the protein, and analyze the composition of the retinal protein. I did that for about two-two and a

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half years. Being a postdoc was difficult. After every year, you either have to keep on looking for another grant and you have to work on that, and then if you didn't get a lot of good publications, you have another problem

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there. I kind of got a little bit tired and I was getting older. So I thought, "This is not for me anymore. I need a steady job, something where I can get some vacation and I can get some stability," and a good opportunity

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came up with the city of Houston. Wow, I guess that's a very- that's a very interesting pathway to take. I do- I have heard a lot about you know, academia culture, and a lot of issues with, you know, grants and finding

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funding. I've been hearing nonstop from all the people within my field about their struggles and finding postdoc opportunities, so interesting to hear that— The-the main problem I was having was, I'm not sure

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about you and your background, but I came here and I was a student, I was on a student visa. And then, I got a green card in ‘73-74.

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I had a green card. When I applied for many of the labs here, including the Exxon lab and other labs to work there, where I could work on a continuous basis rather than working as a postdoc, never had a

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chance. I love teaching, so I thought, well, maybe I can teach, but that didn't work out either. In the end, , I took a job with the City of Houston. So, if you're thinking of teaching, it's good field to be in teaching, you know,

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so what will you do, be a teacher? Good question. Um, these are questions that I have not asked myself yet. But it is- it's very interesting to hear all of these things about academic culture.

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I know that academia culture is similar across the globe, but also quite niche. So what was that transition like, you know, going from academia in India to academia in the States? How was that transition?

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And what did you pick up that was sort of different from the experiences? Any field whether you are in science, or anthropology, cultural anthropology or physical anthropology there is still a lot of work to be done understanding people,

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understanding how the different cultures are, and what do they do. So it's a good field to be in, that's what I found, it was thrilling to be in different worlds and be working with several people.

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And when you are in academia, it's totally different because you are interacting with people that want to study, people that want to teach, have to learn more, so you're always learning, it never stops,

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Right now, I'm still learning, believe me. I'm always learning something or the other. From there, I went down to the city of Houston, and I worked in the environmental program for the city of

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Houston. The main thing at those days was the city had a lot of pollution issues. You know, there were many, many days we would have high ozone.

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If you're driving out from the from the suburbs, you could hardly see downtown, it was all like a big, thick fog. We would collect samples all over the city, and analyze them chemically- analyze to see what kind and how much particulates

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were there, because that was the biggest problem. With the heavy particulates, people will get asthma, people will have breathing trouble. And we used to give ozone warnings to people saying that, "Hey, today will be,

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hot and humid and polluted, it would be another one of those days, you don't want to be outside because you will have breathing issues." We also had problems as they were using a lot of lead in paints, and gasoline.

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As the cars were driving by, a lot of lead would be deposited, on both sides of the street. Kids playing would have an issue because the lead gets deposited in their

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bones, then they will have bone issues. These were all the rules that we came up, we had limits on how much lead we can have, we came up on issues on how much nitric- and nitrogen oxides can be there, or

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sulfur. Because what was happening in those days was- I just saw the other day, a program, I think it was somewhere in Indonesia. The workers were going up in the

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mining area, they had to go up the mountain and get sulfur because there was so much of sulfur deposited. And these people were going up and were bringing 70 pounds of sulfur and getting like $15 for the

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pound of sulfur they were bringing. And that was so bad because sulfur is so toxic, you can't breathe, you will have sulfur dioxide, that is highly acidic.

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Acid in the lungs, one can't breathe. In Houston, we used to have SO2 problem because the refineries in Houston were using heavy oil from Venezuela, the oil has a lot of sulfur content.

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And when they were processing them in the refinery, a lot of sulfur would escape, in the air forming Sulphur dioxide. They did a great job trying to come up with ways of collecting the sulfur, so our numbers started going down.

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You know, I will have to go back again. One more thingwhen I was in Pittsburgh, you wouldn't believe it. Pittsburgh, in the 1945, was a big, big steel town. During World War II, they were making, churning up so much

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steel mills and air was highly polluted. They said you could not see things in the city,. When I reached Pittsburg, the steel mills were shut down.

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But still, on the windows, you would find particles of coal and and shiny particles of steel, it was so bad.

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In Houston we monitored particulates using a filter so that all the particulates that escape into the air are captured and analysed. I worked there for almost six, seven years in

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the Health department. We had a lot of equipment that we were using for detecting pollutants, these equipment had to be calibrated.

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We had to use standard gas from EPA to make sure that our units were within the standards that is required. We had to calibrate all our equipment. We got some grants from EPA, so we could run these

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programs too. So that was where I was, but when I was there, I was looking at a lot of numbers. I would be looking day in and day out. I came up with the idea.

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"Hey, I'm working and all these numbers- and I don't mind numbers- why don't I become an accountant?" Maybe later on I could develop a career in accounting, right? I went back to the University of Houston, and did a master's in accounting.

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Believe me, I didn't know anything about financial statements, I had no idea of anything. So that's where I got exposed to reading financial statements and bonds and different kinds and I got a degree in

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accounting. And then when I started looking for jobs, again, you wouldn't believe- nobody was willing to hire me as I was older person, and I didn't have any experience in accounting. I said, "Well, maybe I should go ahead and do a CPA".

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I took the CPA exam, I took coaching classes and the exam, and I passed it first time. Now, I needed experience, to work with a CPA. I took time off, went back to work with

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a CPA, but I didn't like it.. I just didn't like that kind of work. It seemed like it was totally different. I just worked for about 10 months, close to a year and got my

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practical experience and got my CPA certificate. And then my former boss in the City asked me, "Hey, we have another job. You want to come back?" I said, "Yeah, I'll come back". I went back to the city to work in-in air pollution.

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But as I was there was an opportunity to work as a CPA in the Parks Department in their trust fund. Parks- is kind of interesting. They had a nonprofit organization that worked within

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the Parks department. They were responsible for acquiring park land. They were responsible for developing parks, so they wanted a manager to do that. I went in there and started working in the budgeting office.

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And I learned a lot in the Parks department, You might heard of a city councilor, Eleanor Tinsley. She was responsible for developing a lot of parks that you see in schools. It used to be called SPARK program, a school park

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program., where the city would go in, work with this nonprofit organization, and develop a lot of playgrounds and facilities in schools. So that was one program I

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helped in the Parks department. And then, since I was fairly good with computers and stuff like that, they gave me a job doing revenue. I was doing revenues well, they said, "you can do the budget and do, uh,

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operation now that you know how to make money". They put me in charge of golf and tennis centers- I'm not a sports person. Believe me, I don't play games, I don't watch games.

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For me, all of a sudden, I was put in charge of five golf courses and three tennis centers. And I said, "I don't know anything about golf. I've never played golf, any time".

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But I was responsible for developing them so that the municipal city golf courses could be in par with the other places. We develop Memorial Golf Course and Glenbrook Golf Course. And one most beautiful golf course,

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according to me, is on the northeast side, you know, where the Bayou flows and it's very, very pretty and very beautiful. I enjoyed working and the zoo was

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under the Parks department. We first instituted charging for the zoo, That was an experience, believe me, because the first time in my life we used to send all our money to the bank

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because we could only collect cash. We had a lot of cash, the guy who was taking it, to the bank stole money from the bag. The bank said you didn't have enough money.

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He was taking out a couple of $100 bills from the bag, amazing. We complained, so what did they do? They just moved that guy to another place. We started taking

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credit cards. So that was another big improvement. With all this experience in the Parks department, they said, “well, we're going to move you again”. They moved me to Public Works.

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I went to work downtown. When I was there, I said. "Oh, I think I might want to go back to teaching some time again", so

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for about two years, I taught at the University of Houston downtown as an adjunct professor of accounting, I used to teach Financial Accounting there. I worked in the Public Works department for

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five, six years and did a lot of good work up there. When we developed the parks, golf courses where my work was recognized by the mayor, and when I was in Public Works, they recognized me.

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After I got my accounting background, I was recognized by the American Business Women's Association, and by the Federation of Professional Women. It's always been interesting, what you can do, what you can study-

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even now, I'm so happy watching science channels to see what's happening, I never get tired of it. I can watch cosmos, what happens in the cosmos, what happens to galaxies?

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What happens to the stars? Never ending, I'm never satisfied watching those things, it is a lot of fun. I think science has been the major driving force. When I retired, my mom was very sick.

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I had to retire even though I could have stayed on.. Then I came back and volunteered with our homeowner's association.

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Again, I wanted to volunteer with another place up here where they have Alzheimer’s patients. I thought I can work in the office, doing some office work. They said, "No, no, no, if you want to volunteer, you have to work with these

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patients". And when I was there, this one lady was coming up and asking, "I want lunch. I want lunch". And then this, I asked the lady "She wants lunch.

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How come she's not getting her lunch?" She said, "No, she's already eaten, she has forgotten that she's eaten lunch". And that's how you will be working with those kinds of patients. I said, "Boy, I remember 1965, I didn't want to work

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with patients that had cancer”. Now, it would be so sad for me to work with these kind of patients, to see them day in and day out. I said, "No, no, I can work this thing".

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I volunteered to work with the homeowner’s association, where I used to review house plans that came in for construction in our area. My husband joined SCORE.

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In SCORE we are giving lots and lots of business opportunities for people. When I went in there and they said, "Hey, you're an accountant. So why don't you help us being an assistant treasurer?" Okay.

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Then they said, "You can teach, you love to teach. So why don't you teach these classes?" I said, okay. I started teaching again- this was in 2012, about 10 years ago, again, got into teaching, but this time, it's all Business classes, how to

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run a business, how to do cash flows, how to do financial statements. It was interesting, as you're working one on one with people. And when we had workshops, like we

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will have all day workshops on Saturdays and so I was there every day. And I loved to teach, so I traveled all over the City, teaching at different libraries till the pandemic hit. I

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took on so much- so many various roles in the SCORE office, I was the assistant treasurer, treasurer, I was the manager of the day, I was the teacher. Then they say, "why don't you become Vice President of Education?" I did that for two

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years. Then about two years Vice President of Operations, and I ended up being the chairperson and I told them, "it's okay, being the chairperson I'm not looking for glory.

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I'm going to start teaching and doing things in education, you know, so that's what it's going to be. And it's going to be interesting to see how things work out. It has been a wild experience, but the best thing

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I can tell you is I have met so many different people. In the 1980s when we had our first woman mayor, Kathy Whitmire, at that time, we wanted her to win. I used to work in the campaign, I would go door to door,

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giving people cards and, and I worked in the election area for so many years too, every year during election, used to work where people came to vote and help later on to put down or take down all the machines and doing the

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reports and things like that. I love working, and helping in campaigns. I did all that, but it was a lot of

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fun. I have gone through , from physics to something totally different. But physics has never been away from me, it's still there, you know, and I am still looking at not only

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physics, but also biology, I'm so much interested in DNA replications, and even the viral development. It's amazing how much has been done, our brains are so small.

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But just think of the collective brain of humanity, what they have done, man was nothing, he was a hunter- gatherer, then we went to agriculture, and look at the fantastic amount of machinery that helps in agriculture.

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Now, they have machines that can measure the water level in the field, and control how much water is used in irrigation. You can control the amount of water wastage or usage.

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Things have developed so much that we can control you don't have to use a lot of pest control, you can control their DNA so they don't replicate.

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These are all amazing things that has happened. People are going to Mars and moon and everything. That's all so much of physics, so much accuracy- just imagine the accuracy

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needed to control a land- rover in Mars at the right place and for it to move around and send a signal and it takes so many hours for us to get it back. But still, what a wonderful way man has progressed.

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When I drive a car, I think of it often, manual marvel of a machine it is, that I can get from one place to the other, the gasoline that has developed, the motor engines that have developed, the

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air conditionings in the car. You know, our brains are so wonderful. And man as a whole has developed so much. Right, I feel- I feel like you're, um, the things that you

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consume are very similar to what I- I also really enjoy science. I personally am not pursuing education in that field. But I think I saw the sulphur video you're mentioning the exact same one.

00:32:52.780 - 00:33:02.800

It's by this journalist, right? I think we watched the same exact video. Yes Well, that was so good. They could take out all the sulfur.

00:33:02.800 - 00:33:16.530

But my problem is, I felt so bad that these guys are exposing themselves, you know, what are they getting? Same thing, you look at what happens in the Amazon, you know in the rainforest, you're cutting down all those trees,

00:33:17.070 - 00:33:32.610

for wood or whatever reason it is, but that's cutting down our carbon. I have my own ideas about, you know, yes, we can have electric cars, maybe all that. But we still need gasoline, gasoline to produce electricity.

00:33:33.690 - 00:33:47.320

We need to come up with new ideas, a car is going to be totally made with solar panels, so as you drive or park , you don't need to charge it somewhere else. But it will be charged automatically.

00:33:48.070 - 00:34:00.980

That is actually a very innovative idea. It's honestly, it's very weird to be living in a petrochemical city like Houston. You know, it's-it's pointless if there's an electric car, but the entire grid is still based on natural gas and

00:34:00.980 - 00:34:17.550

gasoline, you know, not different. But definitely I feel like you and I- do you watch SciShow by any chance? Do you watch, like YouTube channels on science? Yes, I do. I see some of these people coming up and talking it's

00:34:17.680 - 00:34:34.700

really good. You see, and I wish, my little nephew is, he's my sister's grandson. He's only like 10 years, and so for his birthday last year, I sent him a telescope, Orion telescope, so he can mount it and I told my

00:34:34.700 - 00:34:50.170

niece, "Let him watch the stars and see what's happening up there, you know, for him to understand". I got him binoculars- I love birds, so I love to watch them. I said, you know, there's one guy in India who,

00:34:50.360 - 00:35:05.040

during the hurricane in India, said two- three parrots came to his house, the terrace, and so he started feeding and the two- three parents have now become 4000 parrots every day, and he puts food out for them.

00:35:06.860 - 00:35:21.300

Such wonderful things that people can do. We are very destructive, but at the same time, it breaks your heart to see an elephant or a rhinoceros being killed for their tusks.

00:35:21.820 - 00:35:32.520

There are others who still go there and try to protect these animals. We have our good side, and we have our bad side. I hate war. I hate war

00:35:32.520 - 00:35:42.480

because that's what happened to us. We got displaced with nothing, we came with nothing on our end. And I hate war. And I hate cruelty to animals.

00:35:43.000 - 00:35:51.860

When that little tiger got lost in Houston, every day I was looking at the paper. What happened to the tiger? What happened to the- tiger where is he? Where is he, I hope they didn't kill him, and

00:35:52.460 - 00:36:12.590

I was so happy to see that they did find him and they took him to a reserve. A lot more needs to be done to help other people, we have to- provide basic things

00:36:12.920 - 00:36:25.530

for every child; they have to have a home, they have to have food, and they have to have education. If they didn't get the education, what does the future hold for them?

00:36:26.540 - 00:36:39.680

Right, right, very much so. That's, that's great. I love your enthusiasm for giving back to the community. I- that was a great crash course in, you know, the things that you've done over the years. I guess now we can sort of

00:36:39.720 - 00:36:47.270

talk about, I do have a question. You've done so much over the years in your various careers. And each different path offers you so much.

00:36:47.550 - 00:37:05.760

So what were the aspects or elements of each career path or each area that gave you the most personal fulfillment and enjoyment? For me, when I was in atomic energy, that was my first job and first experience, again, trying to understand

00:37:06.570 - 00:37:22.550

what marvelous things people were doing. generating power from radioactive material and trying to give electricity for people. The marvel of having radiation

00:37:22.550 - 00:37:33.910

that was helping people having cancer, like people having goiter, they give them radioactive iodine. When

00:37:40.390 - 00:37:54.390

I was Michigan State, we had a lot, they had a very good medical school just coming up. Like I said, I met many of these anthropologists who

00:37:54.830 - 00:38:05.430

I think were so wonderful that they joined the Peace Corps. They were Americans, they have never lived in a country where they don't have running

00:38:05.430 - 00:38:20.040

water, the sacrifice these people were making to go to these countries to understand the culture. People were there in Nigeria, and some of them faced the Civil War, but they were still there.

00:38:20.040 - 00:38:32.900

You know, the Igbos were fighting other people, but they were still there and there were many people that came up. So that was an eye opening experience, it's not just the physics part of it that I was learning, but the interaction

00:38:33.030 - 00:38:46.170

that I was having with so many different people, so many different cultures. I and my roommate, stayed in the dorm for two years, and my roommate just called me two days ago.

00:38:48.820 - 00:39:01.220

We roomed together from '67 to '69 and this is 2021. Just imagine so many years, but we still are friends. We talk about each other.

00:39:01.840 - 00:39:13.020

I knew her family. People invited me to their family. They invited me and they said, "Hey, you come from India here" and my best friend at that time, she said,

00:39:13.020 - 00:39:26.700

"You're going back to India after three years", because I was thinking of going back, she said "you have not seen any part of the U.S." she took her father's car and drove me all the way from Michigan all the way to Yellowstone and to Montana.

00:39:27.220 - 00:39:37.130

That was great, that was a great experience for me, not only studying but interacting with people. People were so nice. Their parents were so nice.

00:39:37.510 - 00:39:49.930

At the same time, at that time, I went to Oak Ridge National Lab. I had some friends who were professors there and see what Oak Ridge National Lab was developing, all the activities that was happening up there.

00:39:49.930 - 00:40:03.070

It is always something new that's happening with people. Even with computers, we never had anything you know, we used to have tape recorders. Now, you can listen to all the music and everything on YouTube.

00:40:03.430 - 00:40:15.570

But we used to have tape recorders with all those tapes, Have you seen any one of them before? Have you seen a big tape recorder? Big reel- the reel tape

00:40:15.570 - 00:40:33.260

recorder and listen to that. In Bombay, we used to run programs, we had to punch cards, and we'll take the cards, and we'll punch numbers and everything

00:40:33.260 - 00:40:47.410

and provide the directions for the program. I had a colleague, who would take stack of cards for processing. On completion, we were expecting a big, long, thick output with all the results of what we had done.

00:40:47.860 - 00:41:00.670

And he would come back and say, they used to say, for want of a small thing, a whole war was lost. Same thing happened here- for want of a comma, the program crashed, there was no result.

00:41:02.080 - 00:41:17.140

It is these little things that you remember. Now, young kids, seven year old can be on the iPad, and they know what to do, marvelous, so much difference for people.

00:41:17.890 - 00:41:31.360

You don't need books from the library, you can get a Kindle, and you can read from there. So much exciting, and what are all the new things that are going to be coming our way, you know?

00:41:31.890 - 00:41:52.520

But on the other side, man has not changed. I am so saddened to see that, in spite of everything we have, in spite of everything we do, we still suffer, inflict pain. According to the Buddhist philosophy, you should not have

00:41:52.630 - 00:42:09.410

anger, you should not be having desire, arrogance, you should not be wanting what other people have- just like the Ten Commandments, or the Buddhist law, still we are unable to control ourselves. When I see people being so

00:42:09.740 - 00:42:25.460

corrupt, it saddens me. In India this COVID situation, there are hospitals and people that t refuse to take patients unless they can give money upfront, how can one be so cruel?

00:42:26.200 - 00:42:40.350

How can one be so cruel that a man is having trouble breathing and you are telling he cannot be admitted in the hospital unless and until he gives the money. We need to get out of that, we need to get out of that kind of

00:42:40.350 - 00:42:54.700

situation. I would like for people to be more understanding, more sympathetic. Yes, I think the message that you have here is a very strong focus on human connectivity as-as it relates to

00:42:54.700 - 00:43:07.900

technology and how it progresses. I'm very interested to hear, you know, all of this science stuff is very fascinating to me personally, as well, but the human connectivity is what makes it worth it. For you, what are the

00:43:07.900 - 00:43:19.420

communities that you think have supported you? And what communities do you feel proud to give back to? Like, in Houston, for example? Well, you know, in Houston, I'm

00:43:23.210 - 00:43:37.280

not looking for any kind of religious things. I love to go and see the Covenant House, I see the advertisement for Covenant House on the TV, young kids, 12 year old on the street

00:43:37.280 - 00:43:53.300

side, they don't have a place to go, this place is good for lost folks. SCORE has been very good to me. They have helped me, educate me and my friends who have been there. One of my friends was in Ohio, he didn't have

00:43:53.480 - 00:44:04.340

anybody, he was very sick. And guess what I told him? I said, "Look, don't be looking for any Indian family to help you. Go to a Catholic Church.

00:44:05.470 - 00:44:23.550

A Catholic Church has different organizations that helps people. They will help to take you to the hospital. Or look for a Jewish Community Center, they will take you". These are the kinds of organizations that help people, that have helped,

00:44:24.130 - 00:44:39.670

me understand because I have been fairly independent. And thank God, I have been in a position where I haven't had to have a lot of help. But when I was leaving Pittsburgh, and I was going to drive all the way from Pittsburgh to Houston by myself,

00:44:39.850 - 00:44:50.690

one of my friends, said, "Are you sure you can drive? Are you sure you can go that far? Call us, call us," you know, so as soon as I got to

00:44:50.690 - 00:45:05.520

a point, I would have to call them back and tell them, "Don't worry. I'm okay," See, that's something that you had. When I was at first semester at Michigan State, an older couple came up and they said, "Hey, I know you don't

00:45:05.520 - 00:45:14.450

have family up here. Come to our house for Thanksgiving". I had no idea what Thanksgiving was. And I, you know, I didn't see a lot of TV.

00:45:14.690 - 00:45:29.740

And we went there, and this couple were going to Florida for winter time. But still, they took me in November first week, gave me lunch and gave me a nice Christmas gift. I was a student and I had

00:45:29.740 - 00:45:45.990

nobody. It was so nice of them, to be able to do that. And that's the kind of people I want to remember that have helped me. My professor, I was in touch with him for years and year, until he died. It has been individuals and

00:45:46.480 - 00:46:08.740

like I told my friend, "Go to church, call them- call the Catholic Church, they will help you". And you know, after I'd done my CPA, I was looking for a job with a

00:46:08.830 - 00:46:20.770

CPA firm. And I was thinking of applying to the IRS. And one of my friends came up and she said, "you're applying for IRS"-, she worked for

00:46:20.770 - 00:46:35.010

IRS. She worked for IRS 20 some years. She said "you're applying for IRS?" I said "yeah". She said "That's not the job for you". I said, "Nancy, why are you saying this to me?

00:46:35.010 - 00:46:51.820

You think I can't do the job?" She said "No," she said, "if you are an IRS agent, and you are an auditor with IRS, when you go to any institution, and you say I'm here from the IRS, and I'm going to audit your books,' they will look at you hatefully.

00:46:52.260 - 00:47:07.560

They will look at you so resentfully, and you are too nice to be able to stand that kind of treatment. I suggest you don't apply for IRS". She was so correct, because I would have been so upset if I went into a job

00:47:07.930 - 00:47:21.350

and they looked at me and they said, "What? You're coming here to audit us?" Forget it, you know. And the same thing, again, when I was working for someone to get my CPA exam, I didn't find- there was no

00:47:21.720 - 00:47:35.410

ethics. Now the CPAs have to have code of ethics, we can't do this I was finding that these people had clients who had a lot of money. They would put them in different

00:47:35.430 - 00:47:53.890

tax saving projects like real estate. The-the firm was making money, doing the books for the company, they were selling the property, using these people that had the money for their own advantage, which again, didn't

00:47:53.890 - 00:48:05.630

sit too well with me, I had to leave that. So these are the kinds of things. But at the same time, when you work in an organization like the city, the Parks department, we fed

00:48:05.630 - 00:48:20.020

500 kids during summer every day all over. I would go by and take a look at those young kids, we gave them a little box with a sandwich, fruit and milk. That was the only lunch they had because the families didn't have any money.

00:48:21.130 - 00:48:33.630

These kind of things are always there, and it happens, but it's always strikes a chord with you. You hope that you can help. I still feel like you need to help we need to

00:48:33.810 - 00:48:52.600

help people to get educated. During COVID, a family had two kids, they had one computer, how do they work? I

00:48:52.600 - 00:49:07.220

went back and I said, "Look, they're telling me that if you buy a Chrome, one of those pads, the kids can work". I gave a couple of Chrome pads for kids so that they can work on it. These are things that I will never forget, my

00:49:07.560 - 00:49:23.200

father was so generous, and I always remember him and I think he was a person who would give his shirt off his back, so I always remember if my father could do that, I should be able to do that, I should be able to give

00:49:24.040 - 00:49:37.980

whatever I can. Of course. You seem to have a very cosmopolitan and egalitarian outlook on life- it's very humanist of you. it's- it's always interesting to see all these people in diverse fields especially

00:49:37.980 - 00:49:52.260

in STEM, you know, care so much about these things. I hope it answered some questions for you. I am wishing you a lot of luck that you do something that would be satisfying for you.

00:49:52.510 - 00:50:00.180

Yes, we need money. We need to be careful. But that's not the only thing in the world. You need money.

00:50:00.180 - 00:50:14.810

As long as you have enough for yourself, we shouldn't be trying all the time for this, try something where it can benefit humanity. It can benefit people, that's the only lesson I can say.

00:50:15.600 - 00:50:30.660

Is Houston is your forever home, and this is where you choose to do your humanitarian deeds? Houston is my home. Somebody had come and mentioned that they did not have money for cancer therapy.

00:50:31.070 - 00:50:44.000

And she said, "Miss Lalitha, I need to go, they're asking me for X dollars before I can even be sent to the hospital to check out," I said, "Okay, let's see what we can do". I think you can help one-on-one to

00:50:46.820 - 00:50:58.820

people. Universities and people like, St. Thomas. They are, they are followers of the Franciscan missionaries.

00:51:00.090 - 00:51:15.450

And the school that I went to in India, in '50s were also Franciscan missionaries, and I will never forget St. Francis, and all that he did. It's very interesting, you, you have a history in all of these so called, you know,

00:51:15.450 - 00:51:27.910

like objective fields, you know, accounting, physics, yet the least objective part is what matters to you the most? Yes so it's a lot of fun- physics is so much fun. I'm not talking about the big equation, but when you look,

00:51:28.310 - 00:51:42.720

that there was a time when man just looked at the stars and they thought, "there is a galaxy, there is a constellation Virgo and, and Scorpio," and things like that, but look what we have done. Now we know what these are made,

00:51:43.880 - 00:51:58.800

they said light coming from 12 billion further out, we can see what's happening now, you know, so amazing. It's just amazing. Our mind I still think, are there other people like us?

00:51:59.110 - 00:52:14.470

We are always looking for other people coming to our world. Right. That's a very interesting, I, used to know a little bit about the Fermi paradox.

00:52:15.000 - 00:52:26.970

I'm a little bit outdated on it, but all these things are very interesting. Um, do you watch Scishow by any chance on YouTube? I think you would like it. I will, you know, those

00:52:27.820 - 00:52:43.840

series that are there How the Universe Works is my favorite show. I never get tired of watching, and now they are sending a probe that'd be looking at the sun to see what's going to be happening, how the sun works. You just think of the sun, we never think of the sun as anything,

00:52:44.040 - 00:52:59.460

it's just converting hydrogen to helium, helium to higher thing and so much of energy is being given out. You can't even comprehend how big it is. We are, not even a speck of

00:52:59.460 - 00:53:16.900

dust, a little mite, but Sun is a huge star, unbelievable. Science has come up with so much, not only in physics, but in biology. When I first took my genetics class, that was the first time I

00:53:16.900 - 00:53:34.030

knew what the chromosomes were. I wish people in India will study more biology, maybe they will understand better how things work, that it's not some kind

00:53:36.160 - 00:53:51.920

of magic, It has its own way of doing things, how precise people have become that if you look at the cause of a genetic damage for

00:53:52.400 - 00:54:08.240

a disease, people now have the CRISPR project where they can go, and remove that section of the DNA and put in something there that would help you replace it. One can study young kids that have some kind of a

00:54:08.740 - 00:54:24.910

disability, and maybe they can help them, The technology is so wonderful, so wonderful. It has become, so everything is not magic, but still close to magic to see it,

00:54:24.950 - 00:54:37.740

Fantastic, you know, fantastic things that you can, you know, I saw something in YouTube. I'll have to say this to you. You- since you say you watch YouTube. I saw YouTube, when a young man had, had found a

00:54:37.810 - 00:54:50.980

orangutan baby, and he had brought that baby up orangutan- for a few years, he was with him. And then finally everybody told him that orangutan is going to become so big, send him back to the forest. So he went back and he

00:54:50.980 - 00:55:04.970

left him. I think he had a name for him. He left him and then it went back into the forest and all that. And then two years later, he- he wanted to see how it was, whether he could go there and see. And he did go- look into

00:55:04.970 - 00:55:17.150

YouTube, he went there, you might have seen, he went there. And there it came- huge, big orangutan, you know, and he came up and everybody told him, don't go near him, it will kill you. He went there, he kind of went near

00:55:17.150 - 00:55:30.070

his face, and he came so close, face-to-face, and recognized him. And he came back behind him, put his arms around him and hugged him and brought his family, the orangutan family, and came along with him.

00:55:30.390 - 00:55:47.930

And then finally, when this guy was going to his camp by boat, the orangutan followed him all the way along and saw him. And so next day before he left, he went back again, to say goodbye. I always tell people, if animals can be friendly, if animals

00:55:47.930 - 00:56:00.350

can recognize and help people, why can't we be, you know? Look at the YouTube, that's the kind of things that I look a lot in YouTubes. Animals responding to people, people, they never forget.

00:56:00.710 - 00:56:16.650

In India, we used to say, when elephant- people take care of elephants, the elephant never forgets what good you do and it also never forgets when you do something bad too. But these animals are so good, then we don't- haven't analyzed their

00:56:16.650 - 00:56:30.700

brain to see what kind of activity goes on in their brain because we are still studying our own. And to come up with where- what things have happened, you know. I always wanted to do research in brain because I felt like studying

00:56:30.700 - 00:56:46.100

Muscular Dystrophy and all those kinds of things, what's the damage, but I never got a chance to do that. But one of the classes we took in Michigan State in the zoology, part of it was- we would look at, put electrodes at

00:56:46.100 - 00:56:55.270

different parts. And then when you move that, and you can see the brain activity in certain sections of the brain, you know, so that was a very, very interesting kind

00:56:55.270 - 00:57:06.150

of a class that I took, and-. So, I've talked a lot, haha. You can definitely live vicariously through all the- different other people. I live vicariously through these,

00:57:06.370 - 00:57:23.090

you know, other people do research all the time. Good. So you have any other questions? Um, I think that was a very- you had a very comprehensive explanation of, sort of all the things you've been through. I think your life, you know, your outlook on life is quite

00:57:23.090 - 00:57:36.480

similar to mine. And yes, I have watched that orangutan video. Very inspiring. I don't know, I guess I have a question about, you know, the way that you focus on animals as decentralizing, you know, getting out of the human head.

00:57:36.480 - 00:57:51.240

I think as humans, we have this hubris, but we also have the knowledge to do so. So how do you think we can learn better from other forms of life, I suppose? I think we observe a lot, you

00:57:51.240 - 00:58:06.290

see the activity that a wild animal can save another species like a bear taking up small things, being protective, you know.

00:58:06.500 - 00:58:21.320

A herd of elephants will never let go of the little elephant there, if he's in trouble, they try to help them out. I think those are some of the things that we see like little ant colonies, I

00:58:21.410 - 00:58:33.910

am so amazed about this leaf carrying ants that go on the trees that you see. So all these things are happening, I watch a lot of birds in my backyard, coming up and going. I think we can do things.

00:58:34.400 - 00:58:49.860

But it takes a lot of effort, money and research. U.S. in that way is great because it gives a lot of opportunities for research. It's not only studying something to make money.

00:58:52.270 - 00:59:09.280

They spend a lot on research that is fundamental for people. We are doing research for understanding how things work. Like Rice

00:59:11.400 - 00:59:31.500

University, how much money they have to spend for basic research that may produce some results for them, that may not produce

00:59:31.500 - 00:59:45.080

any results for them. I think the Western culture in many ways has done that. We are learning in the east, we are learning we were not dumb.

00:59:45.110 - 00:59:57.590

We were smart, but somehow poverty and the population growth in China, India and all those places has prevented us from progressing. We had so many mouths to feed that we didn't think of this

00:59:57.610 - 01:00:14.680

being the important part, whereas the Western culture have done. We have done a lot trying to make our daily lives simple, so that we can do other things. If your machine can do the job, that will be good, that will save the

01:00:14.680 - 01:00:31.060

time and effort. If I can get some machine to do some work, that will be much easier so I don't have to spend a lot of my time. People may live

01:00:32.030 - 01:00:48.330

80 years, but that productive life may be only up to 60-70 maybe. I think the Western culture is doing a lot of good in that respect.

01:00:48.380 - 01:01:03.640

And just imagine, it took so many years to get a vaccine for Ebola or HIV. COVID changed things so rapidly, they first discovered it in

01:01:03.640 - 01:01:16.560

November- October, by the middle of last year, they had analyzed it, they have said that this virus has spikes. Finding a vaccine for it,

01:01:19.910 - 01:01:31.260

I think it's marvelous. There's this, there's a saying in Chinese- I'm Chinese American, there's a saying that sort of goes, "money isn't everything, but without money, it's very hard to do anything".

01:01:31.660 - 01:01:44.220

And I think it's very interesting to talk about, you know, like India and China and the poverty factors. It reminds me of a video, you know, there's not many better options in the job market to support your

01:01:44.270 - 01:01:55.350

family. And ultimately, it is a lot about economic factors. But definitely, I think your take on the surplus of resources, being able to stimulate, human curiosity, and we're learning

01:01:56.860 - 01:02:13.470

something new every day. Just think- in 1969, the first man went on the moon, you never thought that anybody would go to the moon Whoever thought that people can get there,

01:02:14.070 - 01:02:31.210

land down and look at it. People in India, China, all the Southeast Asia, Japanese, they're all very smart. The problem is, they don't have the same opportunities, they don't have the

01:02:31.300 - 01:02:45.660

funds, they have to survive for their everyday life, that it makes it hard for them. Only now I think in many ways, these countries, the younger kids are coming up, and they are getting better educated, better technology.

01:02:46.030 - 01:03:00.160

So hopefully, they will be contributing more. You see a lot of Chinese and Indians and, and many other people- Japanese, for example, they are great economists, they are great scientists, they produce things.

01:03:00.160 - 01:03:14.740

You know, it's not that we are dumb, but we are smart but it's just that how much of facilities do we have, to help people. And I was lucky that I was able to go to Bombay and work for so many years.

01:03:15.030 - 01:03:26.080

I was lucky that I was able to come to Michigan State and work, I've been lucky. I have to thank many people, my professors and people that have helped me.

01:03:26.850 - 01:03:39.270

I think given the kind of opportunity more and more research will be done. And lot of these new technology will help to solve many of the disease problems that we have

01:03:39.770 - 01:03:52.260

and help people. Very, very insightful. You know, being in the right place at the right time with the right people makes up- makes up our life experiences. People say that is luck.

01:03:52.700 - 01:04:04.940

I don't know whether it is luck or it was something else. I think sometimes we choose, with whom we associate, we choose what we want to do, and let's hope that we do good, right?

01:04:05.240 - 01:04:20.810

And I wish you lots of luck, okay, and be happy and learn. And how long do you have to go for your program? I'm working in this program for the summer for now and I currently- in college I still have two more years.

01:04:20.840 - 01:04:28.900

I'm currently a rising Junior, so I have a long way to go. Good. Good. Good. Good. Take care. Thank you so much for doing this interview.

01:04:29.660 - 01:04:35.760

I got a lot of insightful information from you. So thank you so much for taking the time out of your day. You’re welcome. Take care. Okay, good luck. Bye bye.