Uma Chowdhry is an American chemist whose career has been spent in research and management positions with E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Chowdhry was born in 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. She first became interested in science in high school and studied physics at the University of Bombay, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1968. She moved to the United States, hoping to study nuclear physics in graduate school, but after falling in love with chemistry, particularly materials science, the study of solids at the molecular level, Chowdhry decided to work in industrial research. She was fascinated by the possibility that her findings might end up in a practical application on the open market. After graduating from Caltech with a Master’s Degree in Engineering in 1970, she worked at the Ford Motor Company for a short time and then went on to earn a PhD in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. She joined DuPont in 1977 as a research scientist, eventually doing research on ceramics — materials like porcelain and china that are chemically very similar to glass. Ceramics do not normally conduct electricity and, in fact, are often used as insulators in electrical gadgets. Chowdhry cleverly applied chemistry to make ceramics that conduct electricity; moreover, she was able to make ceramics that conduct electricity even better than metals do. Such materials are called superconductors (materials that have no resistance to electrical current at temperatures near absolute zero), and they have many potential uses in computers, batteries, and other electrical devices. In 1988 she became Laboratory Director of the Electronics group, and by 1991 was promoted to be its Director. In 2006 she became Senior Vice President and Global Chief Science and Technology Officer of DuPont, responsible for the company's core research programs and the DuPont “APEX” portfolio of research programs including basic chemistry, materials science and biotechnology. In 2010, she retired after 33 years with the company, becoming Chief Science & Technology Officer Emeritus. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003.