University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor Lav Varshney Selected as White House Fellow
- The Indian American is placed at the National Security Council as Deputy Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology.
Indian American professor Lav Varshney has been selected for the 2022-2023 class of White House Fellows. He is placed at the National Security Council, Deputy Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, the White House said in a Sept. 14 announcement. He is among 15 people chosen from across the country and from a broad cross-section of professions, including from the private sector, local government, academia, the nonprofit sector, medicine, law, and the armed forces.
Varshney is a professor of engineering, computer science, and neuroscience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, âwhere he conducts scholarly research, technological innovation, teaching, and broad public engagement,â according to the White House. Additionally, he works with Brookhaven National Laboratory on computing for national security.
He has been a chief scientist of startup companies: one using AI to optimize wastewater treatment, another using AI in social music co-creativity platforms, and a third making food systems more resilient and flavorful.Â
He has published widely in core areas of information theory and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as applications in climate, sustainability, food, public health, medicine, creativity, telecommunications, semiconductors, and infrastructure. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi, and a senior member of IEEE. He currently serves on the advisory board of AI XPRIZE.
As an entrepreneur, he has been a chief scientist of startup companies: one using AI to optimize wastewater treatment, another using AI in social music co-creativity platforms, and a third making food systems more resilient and flavorful.
He received his B. S. degree with honors in electrical and computer engineering (magna cum laude) from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York in 2004. He received the S. M., E. E., and Ph. D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge in 2006, 2008, and 2010, respectively, where his theses received the E. A. Guillemin thesis award and the J.-A. Kong award honorable mention.
Founded in 1964, the White House Fellows program offers exceptional young leaders first-hand experience working at the highest levels of the Federal government. Fellows spend a year working with senior White House Staff, Cabinet Secretaries, and other top-ranking Administration officials, and leave the Administration equipped to serve as better leaders in their communities. Fellowships are awarded on a non-partisan basis.