Maharashtra Farmer's Daughter Becomes Scholar At University of Alberta

It is inspirational when a person builds everything from scratch, crossing myriads of challenges to achieve milestones in life. Aishwarya Shrikrishna Pawar did the same. Pawar secured a master’s seat at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her selection becomes special concerning her socio-economic background. The daughter of a Maharashtra-based farmer faced financial hurdles to achieve such a milestone.

Post her junior college, Pawar was puzzled about what to do next. She was supposed to choose a degree, keeping in mind her financial position. Pawar, in a report, said, "Financial problems are predominant problems that hinder the growth of hundreds of brilliant minds in society."

Maharashtra farmer Daughter in Alberta University

Aishwarya Pawar is a native of the Satara district in Maharashtra.

Pawar completed her 10th and 12th from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya. She scored a CGPA of 9 in class 10 and 83 percent in class 12,

After completing school, her mother asked Pawar to apply for a Vidyadhan scholarship. Later, Pawar cracked the entrance exam and completed her graduation from the Shivaji University, Kolhapur’s School of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. That is how Pawar fell in love with nanoscience and technology.

Pawar graduated with 92.4 percent in 2020. Later in September 2021 applied for MSc in chemical and materials engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. Pawar successfully cracked the preliminary evaluation and the interview round in November 2021.

Pawar secured seven bands in the IELTS exam last year, an English language proficiency test conducted for higher education abroad.

Currently, she is working on the reversibility of ZnO-Fe 3 O 4 nanocomposites on degrading methylene blue at the varsity’s Chemicals and Materials Engineering department. At the same time, is working as a part-time teacher taking home tuition for secondary students along with her master’s abroad.

Pawar in a report pointed out that during her second year of graduation, she worked on polymer-based bioplastics developing a method of preparing antibacterial bio-plastic with the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles and bioplastic films both from the same raw material – starch in a single step.

The same research article acquired the best paper award in the National Research Writing Competition, as per Pawar.

Pawar worked on photo-catalytic dye degradation the same year and successfully degraded the insecticide “Imidacloprid” – a pollutant by Fe 3 O 4 -silver nanocomposites.

For future prospects, Pawar is looking forward to leverage her knowledge and experience in significant research fields like polymers, energy and biochemical engineering, nanofabrication, and material science at the University of Alberta.

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