AsianScientist (Mar. 08, 2026) – This International Women’s Day we are celebrating some of the leading female scientists from Asia. All of them have recently won prestigious scientific honors in their fields. These women have spent their careers pushing the boundaries of science and protecting people and our environment. They are also uplifting younger researchers in their fields by mentoring and opening door for them.
Kusumita Arora
Director, Indo-German Science & Technology Centre, India
Arora received the 2025 Woman Scientist Award given by the Geological Society of India for her contributions in the field of geomagnetism. She has over 30 years of experience in diverse aspects of geology and geophysics, right from exploration and shallow structures in the mining industry to research in Earth’s geopotential fields, specializing in the behaviour of the geomagnetic field of the Earth, which affects all aspects of our technology based society. She has authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications, supervised several PhDs and post-docs and dozens of Masters dissertations.
Nguyen Minh Tan
Lecturer, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam
Nguyen received the 2024 Kovalevskaya Award for her research on natural compounds and bioactive substances, advancing pharmaceutical applications while enhancing the value and sustainable development of Vietnamese agricultural products. She is known for her relentless dedication, and often loses track of time while working and even discusses projects with colleagues in the middle of a market, according to an interview published on Hanoi University of Science and Technology.
Marcela M. Navasero
Scientist II, National Crop Protection Centre, The Philippines
Navasero was conferred the Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award in 2024. The award recognized her leadership in natural pest control and agricultural biosecurity. As a frontliner of the National Crop Protection Center’s Quick Response Team, she has led rapid pest assessments, managed outbreak responses and identified natural enemies of invasive species—strengthening long-term, cost-effective pest management systems that safeguard national food security.
Lisa Ng
Professor, A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs, Singapore
Ng won the President’s Science Award 2025 for her pioneering contributions to viral infection immunology and advancing global pandemic management through groundbreaking research on arboviruses, particularly Chikungunya. Ng has won numerous accolades for her research, including the ASEAN ‘International Young Scientist and Technologist Award’ in 2008 and A*STAR’s ‘Most Inspiring Mentor Award’ in March 2013. Ng is also a SNAS (Singapore National Academy of Sciences) 2022 fellow, and an exclusively elected member of the prestigious Henry Kunkel society for immunologists of human diseases.
Harkunti Pertiwi Rahayu
Professor, Sumatera Institute of Technology, Indonesia
Rahayu is Indonesia’s leading expert in disaster risk reduction. She was named the 2025 laureate of the prestigious United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction. Recognized for her decades-long commitment to strengthening disaster preparedness in Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific region, Rahayu has played a pivotal role in integrating science into policy and community-based resilience strategies. Her work has significantly influenced national and regional disaster risk governance, particularly in tsunami early warning systems and urban resilience.
Miho Katsuragawa
Assistant Professor, Kyoto University, Japan
Katsuragawa was the recipient of the 2025 Fumiko Yonezawa Award for her contributions to interdisciplinary research based on hard X-ray space observation technologies and their applications to accelerator experiments, particularly for using cadmium telluride (CdTe) semiconductor detectors developed for hard X-ray observations in space to improve the accuracy of non-destructive elemental analysis technology using low-energy negative muon beams. She also contributed to the development of new methods for accurately and simultaneously imaging radionuclides in vivo in small animals.
