15-year-old post-grad from Lucknow accepted into Ph.D programme

Child prodigy Sushma Verma, at 15-year-old, is India’s youngest postgraduate and is now set to purse a Ph.D in environmental microbiology from Lucknow’s Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU), reports a leading English daily

Sushma comes from a humble yet brilliant family. She is the daughter of a sanitation worker at the university and a housewife. Her brother, Shailendra, is a child prodigytoo. He finished his BCA when he was 14 and is now pursuing his post-graduation in Bengaluru. Sushma’s younger sister is only three but she can fluently read the Ramayana!

Sushma came seventh in BBAU’s Research Entrance Test in environment microbiology and the University is making special arrangements to accommodate her in their programme.

Sushma was only a toddler when she started her 9th grade in 2005. In 2007, she cleared her Class X boards and was recognised by Limca Book of Records as the youngest studentto pass the exam. She was just over seven years old. At the age of 13, she became a B.Sc graduate.

Sushma told the daily that she was attracted to the field of environmental microbiology when she was doing lab work on isolating Rhizobium bacteria in roots of leguminous plants for the fourth semester of her post-graduation.