Year: 2023
Type: editorial
Abstract: International Journal of Toxicology passed away on October 13, 2022, in Dallas, TX.Dr Mehendale (Figure 1) was born on January 12, 1942, in a small village located on the centralwestern coast of what was then the Colonial India.His parents were subsistence farmers with extremely limited resources.His childhood and early adult life until he settled in the US was characterized by challenges and hardships.1 Like many a great people, Dr Mehendale took this adversity and forged it into an iron will to succeed, obtained strong moral values and a zest for life.Dr Mehendale would be the first from his family to go to college or travel beyond the state lines, let alone abroad.His educational path was extremely treacherous.To begin with, there was no school in the village where his family had a small farm.Some of his earliest memories about attending school were of walking for miles through flooded rivers and snake infested dirt paths to get to the single room schoolhouses where he obtained a basic education.While life was tough, Dr Mehendale was always strongly supported in his quest for education by his father and his uncle.After his elementary education near his ancestral village, he moved in with his uncle for his further education.His uncle had a stable but transferable job, which meant Dr Mehendale would move around quite a bit during his school years changing several schools until he obtained his high school diploma.Not only was this a time of persona challenge for Dr Mehendale, but it was also a time of turmoil and change in the newly independent India.Resources were limited and opportunities were even more scarce.Most good students chose one of two career pathways, medicine or engineering.However, both of these required substantial financial recourses, which was a challenge for Dr Mehendale.Instead, he decided to choose a different path, something that he would always do in his later life.Dr Mehendale entered an agricultural college and in 1963 graduated with a Gold Medal topping the list all three years of his bachelor's degree program.His time at the agricultural college had broadened his horizons.Dr Mehendale now knew about the larger world, had read about America and the opportunities that existed abroad.He made the brave decision to leave rural India and travel to the US to obtain graduate education.This was no small feat given that he had no money and very little information.Such challenges never stopped Dr Mehendale from chasing his dreams.He borrowed money, left his beloved family including his parents and siblings behind, and took a leap of faith by moving to the US.Dr Mehendale arrived in the US in 1964 with $8 in his pocket and a mind full of dreams to join the MS program at the North Carolina State University in 1964.He found mentorship from some of the leading scientists of the
Authors: Udayan Apte, S. Satheesh Anand, Murali Badanthadka, Jaya Chilakapati, Lawrence R. Curtis, Vivek Dadhania, Sivarao V. Digavalli, Urmila Kodavanti, Prasada Rao Kodavanti, Pallavi Limaye, Raja Mangipudy, Subramanya N. Murthy, Binu Philip, Pratibha Rao, Sharmilee Sawant, Kartik Shankar, Vishal Vaidya, Tao Wang
Institutions: University of Kansas Medical Center, Nitte University, Oregon State University, Building Bridges, East Tennessee State University, Environmental Protection Agency, BioIVT (United States), Pfizer (United States), Southern University System, Moderna Therapeutics (United States), University of Colorado Anschutz, University of Colorado Denver, Coherus BioSciences (United States)
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4376598106