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.
Before her elevation, Ms. Manjula, who is a DRDO Outstanding Scientist, was Director of the Defence Avionics Research Establishment, Bengaluru, since July 2014.
She took charge from K.D. Nayak, Distinguished Scientist & Director General, who held the additional charge of the six ECS laboratories.
The DGs of seven clusters form the defence R&D establishment's second rung and report to its Secretary-Director General.
An alumna of Osmania University and a practising electronics and communications engineer, Ms. Manjula joined DRDO in 1987 after a brief stint in the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. At the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory, Hyderabad, she worked in the area of integrated electronic warfare and is credited with developing fast signal acquisition receivers, high power RF systems, responsive jammers and controller software for various systems used by the military and the paramilitary.
Her specialisation includes configuration of communication and radar ESM and ECM systems.
Ms. Manjula has been conferred the DRDO award for performance excellence, the Scientist of the Year award for 2011 and the India Today Woman Summit award for 2014.
