J Manjula has been named DRDO’s first woman Director General and has taken charge of the Electronics & Communication Systems cluster, an official announcement said on Wednesday.
She has been leading Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), one of the establishments of DRDO, as a Director since July 2014. She is an alumna of Osmania University and a practicing Electronics & Communications engineer. She had a brief stint in Electronics Corporation of India ltd before joining Defence R&D Organisation, from 1987. She has served in Defence Electronics Research laboratory, (DlRl) Hyderabad for more than 26 years in the area of Integrated Electronic Warfare.
Manjula has designed and realised fast signal acquisition receivers, high power RF systems, responsive jammers, controller software etc for various systems inducted in Army, Navy, Air Force and Paramilitary. She has vast experience in EW systems design & deployment in wide area network and her specialisation includes configuration of Communication & Radar ESM and ECM systems.
Manjula has worked closely with the Indian
industry, academia and
firms abroad. The
DGs of seven clusters form the defence R&D establishment’s second rung and report to its Secretary-Director General.
She is a recipient of DRDO award for ‘Performance Excellence’ and ‘Scientist of the Year 2011’. She is also the recipient of India Today Woman Summit award for 2014.