Tapashree Tah - Air Professional
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
From Kolkata Roots to Air Quality Leadership
As a first-generation immigrant from Kolkata, India, a city where culture and education are deeply valued, Tapashree grew up with one clear goal: to be independent, inspired by watching her family build their own freedom and choices.
She completed a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology Engineering in India, combining biological and chemical engineering subjects, with a final project in plant sciences that initially drew her toward research.
Moving to the United States by herself for graduate school, she pursued a Master’s in plant virology at the University of Missouri-Columbia on a full scholarship, immersing herself in a new culture and figuring out daily life, from cooking to managing a home, without family nearby.
Navigating Immigrant Struggles and Career Setbacks
In plant virology, she spent months injecting plants with bacteria only to see them die, and realized early that even though she was capable, she did not want to “live and breathe” that work for the rest of her life.
Accepting that mismatch was the first step. Despite the sunk time and stability of a funded program, she pivoted to a Master’s in Chemical Engineering, driven by a desire to return to calculations and problem-solving.
After graduating in the U.S. on a visa, she applied to hundreds of jobs and received only four interviews due to employers’ hesitation in hiring candidates on temporary visas, but persistence paid off when she secured her first role in environmental consulting.
Growing Through Consulting and Moving to Canada
The first three months in consulting were a steep learning curve. Thesis work had trained her to work alone and think deeply, but consulting required understanding client needs, meeting deadlines, and communicating clearly.
A supportive first manager became a key mentor, walking her through concepts on the whiteboard, showing models, charts, and calculations. This helped translate academic knowledge into practical solutions and built trust in her abilities.
She discovered she loved the combination of detailed calculations, pulling a complete “package” together, and building client relationships, spending about eight years in consulting before moving from the U.S. to Canada.
In Canada, she continued consulting in Ontario before moving into industry at a mining company, taking care of an air monitoring program, managing a complex system from scratch, learning to mentor juniors, resolve conflicts, and see projects from an internal perspective rather than as an external consultant.
Thriving as a Woman in Male-Dominated STEM
During her Chemical Engineering master’s, there were only four or five women in a class of around fifteen, but she refused to exclude herself. She made a point of asking questions and pushing herself to be seen and heard, even when she knew people might talk behind her back, trusting that if she was right, she had to keep moving forward.
Her message is clear:
"If you think a field is male-dominated, that should not be a reason to shy away. You are there because you are capable, and you must recognize your own worth rather than letting someone else define it."
She emphasizes being assertive without being rude and reminds younger women that men are good colleagues, treating them as such often invites equal treatment in return.
Community, Networking, and Finding Your Tribe
Arriving in a new country with no family, she built community intentionally: friends became family, and she leaned on networks of people with similar goals or shared backgrounds, such as older students in her program or those from similar countries.
She encourages students and early-career professionals to network widely, join youth-focused groups, international student organizations, and professional associations, and to keep showing up to meetings even when it feels uncomfortable at first.
A recurring theme in her advice is “find your tribe.” Not everyone you spend time with will become a best friend, but aligning yourself with people who have a similar growth mindset ensures mutual support and creates an investment in relationships that can last a lifetime.
Mindset: Problems, Goals, and Self-Compassion
Tapashree believes there will never be a day without problems.
"If there are no problems, you might be on the wrong path"
The question becomes how to approach them.
For her, the first step in solving anything is accepting that there is a problem; once you stop pretending it is a one-off, you can explore alternatives, just as she did when pivoting from plant virology to chemical engineering.
She recommends breaking bigger goals into smaller ones, including weekly targets, and writing them down to clarify direction and timeline.
Reflection is another key practice: after projects, she suggests jotting down what went well, where mistakes were made, and what could be improved, using that awareness to guide future work.
Her message to her younger self, and to other first-generation students, is gentle but firm:
"You are already multitasking at a high level, leaving your country, living away from family, learning a new culture, studying, cooking, and managing your own life."
She would tell herself, “You will be fine and do great,” and reminds young graduates to have fun, build friendships they’ll cherish forever, and not forget the purpose that brought them there in the first place.
Advice for Students and Early-Career Engineers
For high school students, she stresses the importance of math as the foundation of calculus and engineering, plus the ability to see the big picture of a problem and explain concepts clearly to others as a test of understanding. She encourages visiting universities, exploring what excites you, and aligning with ambitious people because you are likely to become like the people you spend the most time with.
For those in university or graduate school, she recommends co-op placements to get a “sneak peek” into real-world scenarios, and for new consultants, taking advantage of training, webinars, and learning new regulations and software tools.
In early-career roles, she advises understanding the big picture, asking questions when in doubt, documenting decisions and conversations, and embracing continuous learning and skill upgrades.
Climate Purpose and Future Vision
Through all her pivots, one big-picture goal has remained constant: contributing to the environmental field, especially air. She cares deeply about climate change and asks what kind of air future generations will breathe, arguing that since so much damage has already been done, the environmental community needs to focus on prevention and control of air emissions with the same seriousness applied to water treatment. That means advancing technologies and systems, adopting better fuels, improving control equipment, and implementing practical decarbonization strategies effectively across industry.
Across her journey, Tapashree describes “happy moments” not only as achievements, switching successfully into graduate school or getting her first job despite visa constraints, but also as times when she helped spread diversity and support others walking a path similar to hers.
For her, flourishing means combining technical work, mentoring, community-building, and climate purpose, all grounded in the hard-earned perspective of a first-generation immigrant who chose to build a life and a career far from home.