Nepali woman shaping future engineering at Intel

Tradition often kept girls tied to household chores in a small farming village in western Nepal. Days moved at a slow, steady pace—the scrape of sickles on stone, the smoke of straw-fed fires and the murmur of women sharing gossip as they worked in the farmlands.

But young Yamuna Paudel imagined a different life despite social and family barriers. Today, she works as a Module Development Engineer at Intel Corporation in Oregon, the US.

Growing up where schooling was rare for girls
She was the youngest of four children. Her three brothers were expected to study and find jobs. For girls, education was often cut short—sometimes for lack of money, sometimes because marriage came first.

Even today, the gender gap in education persists. According to the 2021 census, the literacy rate in Nepal stands at 76.3% – men at 83.6% and women at 69.4%. The
gap is even wider in technical fields. According to UNESCO, only 7.8% of researchers in Nepal are women, and female enrollment in engineering hovers just around 18%, according to the Institute of Engineering under the Tribhuvan University.

Against this backdrop, Paudel completed her early schooling with distinction and went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from Tribhuvan University.

A leap across the ocean
Eager to push the boundaries of science, Paudel moved to the US to pursue a PhD in physics, specializing in photonics, at the City University of New York. At the Advanced Science Research Center, she studied metasurfaces—ultra-thin nanostructures capable of manipulating light to drive solar-powered chemical reactions.

Her research works, published in top journals, such as Nature Nanotechnology and The Journal of Chemical Physics, have added new insight into light–matter interactions with possible applications in renewable energy.

Engineering tomorrow’s technology
At Intel, Paudel works on semiconductor process development, contributing to technologies most people take for granted, from smartphones to cloud servers.

It is a world far removed from the fields where she once helped her family harvest grain. But she has not forgotten where she came from. “Every girl who makes it into science carries the hope of a whole community,” she says. “We need to make sure the path is clearer for those who come next.”

An example for others
In Nepal, more girls are now in primary school than ever before. But many still drop out in their teens due to household responsibilities, early marriage and a lack of infrastructure, especially in rural areas. The road is even steeper for those pursuing science, technology, engineering and math, known as STEM fields. Social norms, lack of mentorship and limited access to resources continue to hold young women back.

Paudel’s success is a reminder that talent exists in every corner of the country—and that with opportunity and support, even a girl from a remote hillside village can stand at the frontier of global innovation.