09/06/2025
Professor Gali Madhavi Latha played a crucial role in the construction of the Chenab Bridge, the world’s highest railway arch bridge, located in Jammu and Kashmir. Standing 359 meters above the Chenab River, this bridge is a vital part of the 272-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Link (USBRL), inaugurated on June 6, 2025. As the primary geotechnical consultant, Latha committed 17 years (2005–2022) to the project, working with Northern Railways and Afcons Infrastructure. The Himalayan terrain posed challenges like fractured rocks, steep slopes and seismic risks. Latha’s team used a “design-as-you-go” approach, adapting to geological conditions in real-time. She advised on slope stabilization, foundation design and rock anchor placement, ensuring the bridge could withstand winds up to 260 kmph, earthquakes and a 120-year lifespan. Her approach was documented in the paper “Design as You Go: The Case Study of Chenab Railway Bridge,” published in the Indian Geotechnical Journal. Her work fulfilled a century-old dream of connecting Jammu and Kashmir by rail and set a global standard for engineering in extreme environments.
Latha is a distinguished civil engineering expert and a Higher Administrative Grade professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, where she chairs the Centre for Sustainable Technologies. She earned her Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from IIT Madras in 2000, after a bachelor’s degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada, and an M.Tech from NIT Warangal, where she graduated with first-class honors and a gold medal. Joining IISc in 2003 after roles at IIT Guwahati and a postdoctoral stint at IISc, her research centers on geomechanics, soil reinforcement, and earthquake geotechnical engineering, with a focus on image-based techniques for studying geosynthetics. She has received notable awards, including the Best Woman Geotechnical Researcher from the Indian Geotechnical Society in 2021 and recognition among the Top 75 Women in STEAM in India in 2022, solidifying her status as a trailblazer in STEM.
