Background
Tessy was born in April 1963 in Alappuzha, Kerala, to a small-businessman father and a homemaker mother. She grew up near a rocket launching station and says her fascination with rockets and missiles began then
engineer scientist Aerospace engineer
Tessy was born in April 1963 in Alappuzha, Kerala, to a small-businessman father and a homemaker mother. She grew up near a rocket launching station and says her fascination with rockets and missiles began then
She graduated in engineering from Government Engineering College, Thrissur.
She is the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India. She is known as the "Missile Woman" of India. She also has an M.Tech in Guided Missile from the Institute of Armament Technology, Pune (now known as the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology).
Her parents from Kerala named her after Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu.
Tessy was associate project director of the 3,000 km range Agni-III missile project She was the project director for mission Agni IV which was successfully tested in 2011.
Tessy was appointed as the Project Director for 5,000 km range Agni-V in 2009 and is based at the Advanced Systems Laboratory in Hyderabad. The missile was successfully tested on 19 April 2012.
In January 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Indian Science Congress that Mrs Thomas is an example of a "woman making her mark in a traditionally male bastion and decisively breaking the glass ceiling".
The media loves to call her Agniputri, or one born of fire, after the missiles she has helped development "We are all proud of our country.