Women who protect the seabed

Tamil Murasu, கடலடி காக்கும் பெண்கள் 

(Summarised translation)

Assistant Professor Malika Meghjani from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is leading scientific efforts to protect and restore coral reefs.

She serves as the Director of SUTD’s MARVL (Multi-Agent Robot Vision and Learning) Laboratory, and has been named among the world’s top 50 women in robotics.

“Singapore’s waters are mostly murky and allow very little light to pass through,” she explained. “Therefore, when our underwater robots capture videos, technology is used to make the images clearer.”

“If a scientist wants to study only coral reefs, the system will send back only the relevant images — and only when something unusual is detected,” said Dr Malika.

She also leads projects involving 3D mapping of coral reefs, inspection of ship hulls, autonomous floats to track oil spills, and intelligent seabed mapping.

In addition, she and her family have been participating in the ‘100K Coral Reefs’ initiative launched by the National Parks Board (NParks) in 2024.