COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

How Anuradha Mukherjee Became Mishelle Michaels

Arthur J Pais

When she was interviewed for a position as a meteorologist and environmental reporter for a television station in Manchester, New Hampshire, about nine years ago, her prospective employers were urgently impressed with her credentials -- and poise. She had a bachelor of science degree in meteorology with honors from Cornell University and had impressive credentials as a student leader. There was hardly any person of color in New Hampshire reporting the complex world of weather -- and the station was keen on hiring the young woman.

But the name Anuradha Mukherjee bothered them. They urged the Calcutta-born Anuradha, who had spent most of her life in America, to choose a name that was easy for Americans.

Though in neighboring Massachusetts, Umma Pemmaraju had succeeded in keeping her name and had gone to become a hotshot television reporter in Boston, Mukherjee could not win.

She chose Mishelle as her first name because it was rather close to what her parents called her -- Mishtu. And Michaels, she thought, was in some way close to her last name.

"After I was established, and I got the job offer at Channel 7 in Boston, I sought to go back to my original name," Michaels says with a sigh. "But now they told me that many people in Boston had come to know with my assumed name -- having watched me on television while they were in New Hampshire -- that it was not fair to change my name."

She is now resigned that she will always be known as Mishelle Michaels. "I would love to be known by my given name," she says. "But then I also tell myself that ultimately what matters is how I have done in my life."

She has been doing plenty. Michaels has been a fundraising and active member of the Big Sister Foundation since the spring of 1992, mentoring to children in the poorer parts of Boston. In 1994, she was named as one of the Big Sisters of the Year. She is also a volunteer and spokesperson for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She has hosted the Society's "Mutts n' Fluff n' Stuff" walkathon each year since 1992. In addition to writing on New England tourism for MASSPORT, Michaels has written pieces on education aimed at young readers for The Boston Herald. She has also narrated and helped to produce a Scholastic Aptitude educational video used in 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms nationwide.

She has turned her passion for weather into a year-round activity on and off the camera. "The weather in Boston and the rest of New England is dramatic and ever changing," she says, "and there is hardly a dull day. There is so much I can share about the weather with school children and adults, so much that I can teach."

Michaels, who has taught an introductory meteorology course to the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, is a visiting professor at University of Massachusetts in Lowell and teaches a full year course in meteorology that she developed to upperclassmen in the major. Two years ago, she wrote a paper about the goals of the course for the American Meteorological Society called Meteorological Communications: Curriculum Addressing the Needs of the Private Sector. She presented this paper at an international weather conference last year.

"I get job offers from many other cities where the work would be less taxing," she says, referring to offers from Phoenix in Arizona or Nashville in Tennessee. "But could they match the weather here? In Arizona, it is hot and humid for most part of the year," she adds.

She is an active member of the American Meteorological Society and sits on the Board of Women and Minorities.

Michaels, who has been chosen twice in recent years to give an address at the prestigious Conference on Women in Science and Engineering, completed a masters degree in education at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education three and half years ago, with a concentration in Technology in Education.

"I am one of those people who will never quit a university campus," she says. "I will teach -- and I guess I will continuing studying."

Tell us what you think of this report