Ammini Sundaram Moorthy PhD

Dr. Ammini Moorthy PhD is a retired Professor Emeritus, residing in GRANTHAM, New Hampshire, with her husband Sam. She grew up in tiny little village in Kerala, India. Youngest of the seven siblings, living in a large, joined family, she learned to listen to and tell stories at an early age. Born an extrovert, with an attitude, she got into troubles, which her authoritative father did not like, and he sent her to a Catholic Missionary School and College when she was barely 12 years old. She did extremely well in all her studies. She got married, by arranged marriage to Sundaram (Sam), a young PhD graduate from University of Pennsylvania and came to America, not knowing anything about her new husband and the new country she is moving to. Astute, smart, and determined she went on to higher studies, taking all the relevant entry exams and studied in New York University and graduated with a PhD in Cell Biology and Genetics and did a post-doctoral in Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Meanwhile, in the home front, Sam and she had two children, a boy and a girl and had to learn the hard way how to raise children in a culturally and socially different country. Ammini got a tenure track teaching position at Wagner College in Staten Island where she taught several courses, chaired the pre-med and pre-health committees, and did undergraduate research with many of her students. She is proud of the fact, that many of her students went to become, doctors, dentists, physical therapists, got PhDs and are working in different states in United States. She won awards for teaching excellence and went on to become a Full Professor in 1993 and retired as a Professor Emeritus in 2014. After retirement Sam and Ammini moved to New Hampshire to be closer to their daughter who is Radiologist at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Once Sam and Ammini moved to the Eastman Community, she has kept herself busy taking courses through OSHER Lifelong Learning Center and joining groups like the Garden Club, Book Club. Mahjong Group, and Tai Chi classes. The Memoir courses she took through OSHER gave her enough courage and incentive to write her own Memoir “Immigrant Transformed: From the Land of Coconuts to the Big Apple.” The COVID Pandemic and the social isolation for couple of years gave her Lazy Hazy days to put together her thoughts. She views her life as a Giant Roller Coaster Ride, with difficulties but with an optimistic attitude she always enjoys those rides. Ammini loves gardening, travel, cooking, being with friends and playing with her three grandsons. She is a voracious reader and Sam refers her as LEPISMA, the two tailed silver fish that resides inside books and devour them. Her life story is one of adaptations, accommodations, and Transformations and in this regard is truly an immigrant story that should resonate with all the immigrants all over the world