 The only reason the young Kusala, fresh out of her chemistry degree, was sent all the way from Trivandrum, Kerala, to Roorkee, then-Uttar Pradesh, was that her sister was working there.Though she was sent there to do her masters in chemistry, a chance encounter with a professor at the IIT-Roorkee campus led Kusala to the field of science that she would come to master over the next thirty years, geophysics.Kusala is married to the renowned Indian geologist C.P.