California, USA (CU)_ Indian-American Dr. Arati Prabhakar was approved by the United States Senate to take over as the next head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). With this great achievement, she becomes the first woman, immigrant, and person of color to serve in that capacity. Arati Prabhakar’s candidacy was confirmed by a vote of 56 to 40, making her the Chief Science and Technology Advisor to US President Joe Biden and a cabinet member.
Biden announced Prabhakar’s candidacy in June 2022 and complimented her in a statement. According to him, “She was a brilliant and highly-respected engineer and applied physicist.” US President Joe Biden said, “I share Dr Prabhakar’s belief that America has the most powerful innovation machine the world has ever seen.”
Under Biden, OSTP collaborated with the National Security Council and created the American Pandemic Preparedness Plan, and it also oversees the Cancer Moonshot Initiative of the White House. When Prabhakar was three years old, her family migrated to the United States and settled in Lubbock, Texas. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University, she became the first woman to obtain a doctorate in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology.
Arati Prabhakar began her career as a Congressional Fellow at the Office of Technology Assessment, and then served in Silicon Valley for about 15 years. She established her charitable organization Actuate in 2019 with the mission of bringing new actors to the table to discover answers to the challenging concerns of climate, health, trustworthy data, information technology, and opening access to opportunity for all. Prabhakar was also the first woman to serve as the head of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
