<p>Fourty six-year-old Thomas, a missile scientist with the DRDO and associated with the Agni project for the past two decades, will work under overall Agni programme director Avinash Chander, sources said.<br /><br />She had played a crucial role in the successful firing of the 3,500-km range Agni III as an associate project director.<br /><br />Agni V is slated for tests sometime next year. The tests will propel India into an elite club of five nations with Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capability. Thomas, also the project director of the new, advanced version of the 2,500-km Agni II missile since last year, joined the DRDO in 1988 and was assigned to the Agni project by former president A P J Abdul Kalam.<br /><br />The B Tech graduate from Thrissur Engineering College did her Master’s from the Defence Institute of Advanced Technologies, Pune.<br /><br />An expert in ‘solid propellants’, which fuels Agni missiles, she is based at the Advanced Systems Laboratory in Hyderabad.</p>
<p>Fourty six-year-old Thomas, a missile scientist with the DRDO and associated with the Agni project for the past two decades, will work under overall Agni programme director Avinash Chander, sources said.<br /><br />She had played a crucial role in the successful firing of the 3,500-km range Agni III as an associate project director.<br /><br />Agni V is slated for tests sometime next year. The tests will propel India into an elite club of five nations with Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capability. Thomas, also the project director of the new, advanced version of the 2,500-km Agni II missile since last year, joined the DRDO in 1988 and was assigned to the Agni project by former president A P J Abdul Kalam.<br /><br />The B Tech graduate from Thrissur Engineering College did her Master’s from the Defence Institute of Advanced Technologies, Pune.<br /><br />An expert in ‘solid propellants’, which fuels Agni missiles, she is based at the Advanced Systems Laboratory in Hyderabad.</p>