Guanajuato, Gto., January 4, 2018.- Since she was a little girl, Dr. Pooja Vinod Kshirsagar observed the phenomena of nature with a genuine curiosity that led to question herself more than once, why things happen.

Once, when she was 14 years old, she witnessed an earthquake in Bombay (now Mumbai), the city of dreams and ambitions of her country, India, and her birth city, so she asked her father: Why do earthquakes happen? And he answered be telling here that there was a lot of energy trapped beneath the earth and there is a time when it wants to get out.

Not pleased with the answer, the young woman filled with curiosity, she started researching, and so, that is how she read several articles about it and led her to volcanos, defined as "openings in the earth, and commonly on a mountain, where time to time they come out as smoke, flames and ignited or melted matters."

The volcanic activity is considered one of the most impactful manifestations of the processes that reveal the evolution of the Earth and other planets in the Solar System. In an interview, the professor at the University of Guanajuato mentioned that, she followed her passion by dedicating to the study of volcanos, although in India weren't active and many people told her that there was no future with that career.

She said, that despite her family didn't have any academics, she didn't stop in her will to become a volcanologist, "I studies the degree, master and doctorate in India, then I made a postdoctoral internship in the Geophysics Institute of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, country I arrived in 2013 to work on the volcanos of Michoacán and Guanajuato."

Throughout her professional career she has dedicated to the study of volcanos, lava, magma and other geological phenomena, plus it has a specialty in Geochemistry.

Dr. Pooja Vinod Kshirsagar, same as many other women scientists, faced gender discrimination, "I had some problems in my country for being a woman, for example: when we went out to the field I was told I couldn't do that or that I couldn't go alone, etc. What shocked me more was when I finished my postdoc and began with the job interviews, they would ask me, 'Hey, since you are a woman and you will marry, what are you going to do when you have children? How will you continue with your work? I was very professional in the interviews and didn't understand why the questions were more personal."

However, she overcame those obstacles and continued her path, back to Mexico, she incorporated to the team of professors and researchers of the University of Guanajuato.

Her research lines center on physical volcanology, studies about the evolution of volcanoes, interpretation of eruptions, as well as research of the risks and dangers the volcanos have.

Currently, she is beginning to work in the study of craters in Valle de Santiago, known as the "Siete Limunarias", "the focus I have right now is to interpret the evolution of the volcanism in this zone of the state of Guanajuato and use the data to make a paleoclimatic study". With that study, the researcher could find "the relation of the craters with other geodynamic phenomena and superficial and atmospheric processes, as well as their effects in the environment, infrastructure and society."

Dr. Vinod is also interested in Geotourism, specially regarding the care of volcanoes with the intention to create tourism and employment.

To finalize, she sent a message to all young female students to follow their dreams, "don't listen to negative comments that only want to stop you, dedicate to what you like, be patient and fight for it, move on forward no matter the obstacles in the way. Science is made for everyone."

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