IIT Madras Alumna Preeti Aghalayam to Lead Institute's Zanzibar Campus

Preeti Aghalayam, who completed her BTech in Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras in 1995, has been appointed Director-in-Charge of IIT Madras Zanzibar, the institute's first campus outside India. The campus is located in Tanzania.

After her undergraduate studies, Aghalayam moved to the United States, where she earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island. She began her academic career as a faculty member at IIT Bombay, and later returned to IIT Madras, where she continued teaching and research in chemical engineering.

Her appointment in 2023 placed her at the centre of efforts to set up the new campus and build its academic and administrative framework. The Zanzibar campus has begun offering undergraduate programmes, including courses in Chemical Engineering and Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

Aghalayam's path — from a student in IIT Madras classrooms to a faculty role at the same institute and then to leading its first international campus — spans teaching, research and academic administration. Her career illustrates the range of opportunities an engineering education can open up, and for students it underscores that an IIT degree can mark the start of a longer journey in learning and leadership rather than its end.