Chandri Prasad Verma is India's first female mining engineer. When Chandri first applied for a mining engineering program, mining schools would not admit her due to a 1950s law that severely limited women seeking to work in mines, and who wished to take mining engineering courses. After a year long legal battle, Chandri was allowed into a mining program, but despite the fact that she graduated at the top of her class in 1999. She was not selected for a job during her university's recruitment process because she was a woman. Because of this refusal to give her field work Chandri began work as a lecturer at her university and got her master's and PHD in mining engineering in 2015. After completing her PHD she was hired by CSIR – Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research.