Biden Nominates Indian American Dr. Arati Prabhakar to Lead Office of Science and Technology Policy

President Biden will nominate Indian American Dr. Arati Prabhakar to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP, the White House announced today (June 21.) If confirmed, the former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and National Institute of Standards and Technology leader would make history as the first woman, immigrant, or person of color confirmed to head the OSTP. 

Once she is confirmed, Prabhakar will also serve as assistant to the President for Science and Technology. In this capacity, she will be the president’s chief advisor for Science and Technology, a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and a member of the president’s Cabinet. She would also become the third Asian American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander to serve in President Biden’s Cabinet, joining Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

“Dr. Prabhakar is a brilliant and highly-respected engineer and applied physicist and will lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy to leverage science, technology, and innovation to expand our possibilities, solve our toughest challenges, and make the impossible possible,” said President Biden in a White House press release. “I share Dr. Prabhakar’s belief that America has the most powerful innovation machine the world has ever seen. As the Senate considers her nomination, I am grateful that Dr. Alondra Nelson will continue to lead OSTP and Dr. Francis Collins will continue to serve as my acting Science Advisor.”

Several voter mobilization groups like the AAPI Victory Alliance and Indian American Impact have lauded Prabhakar’s appointment and applauded the president for diversifying his Cabinet. 

Calling Dr. Prabhakar “a trailblazer in every aspect of her career, AAPI Victory Alliance executive director Varun Nikore congratulated Prabhakar on her historic nomination. “Our country is only starting to rover from the pandemic, so we know the country is in good hands under her leadership.” 

Neil Makhija, executive director of Indian American Impact, in a statement, applauded President Biden for his “historic decision, which uplifts not only the exceptionally qualified Dr. Prabhakar but all South Asians and Asian Americans who aspire to reach new heights and become leaders within public service and the scientific community.”

Several voter mobilization groups like the AAPI Victory Alliance and Indian American Impact have lauded Prabhakar’s appointment and applauded the president for diversifying his Cabinet.

Prabhakar was unanimously confirmed by the Senate before, to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and was the first woman to hold that role. She later served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where she “oversaw teams that prototyped a system for detecting nuclear and radiological materials before a terrorist can build a bomb, that developed tools to find human trafficking networks in the deep and dark web, and that enabled complex military systems to work together even when they were not originally designed to do so,” the White House said, She also established a new office to spur novel biotechnologies. “Under her leadership, DARPA kick-started the development of a rapid-response mRNA vaccine platform, making possible the fastest safe and effective vaccine development in world history in response to COVID-19.”

Before that she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), taking the helm at age 34 as the first woman to lead the agency. At NIST, she helped take from the early seed stage to the national scale the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to boost the competitiveness of small- and mid-size manufacturers, and the Advanced Technology Program to stimulate early-stage advanced technology development. She also reinforced NIST’s long-time mission in measurement science and technology that underpins commerce and high-quality manufacturing.

Between her Federal leadership roles, Prabhakar spent 15 years in Silicon Valley, helping bring R&D to deployment as a company executive and as a venture capitalist. Her work included components for consumer electronics and semiconductor process technology. In 2019, she founded Actuate, a non-profit organization bringing new actors to the table to develop solutions to the challenges of climate, health, trustworthy data and information technology, and opening access to opportunity for every person.

Prabhakar’s family immigrated from India to the United States when she was three years old – first to Chicago and then settling when she was age 10 in Lubbock, Texas. She earned an electrical engineering degree from Texas Tech University and was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology, where she also earned an M.S. in electrical engineering. 

She started her career in the legislative branch as a Congressional Fellow at the Office of Technology Assessment.

She is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.