Arati Prabhakar



Arati Prabhakar is an Indian American engineer and a US government official. She came into the limelight on 3 October 2022 when she was designated as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the chief science advisor to Joe Biden,  President of America. She served as the head of the DARPA, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, from 2012 to 2017. She is the founder of Actuate, a non-profit venture. She is considered the first woman to head the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 1993 to 1997.



Wiki/Biography


Arati Prabhakar was born on Monday, 2 February 1959 (age 63 years; as of 2022) in New Delhi, India. Her zodiac sign is Aquarius. Soon after completing her school education, she joined Texas Tech University in the US in 1976 and completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Electric Engineering in 1979. From 1979 to 1984, she pursued a Master of Science degree in Electric Engineering from California Institute of Technology, US. When Arati was three years old, her mother shifted to the United States from Delhi, India. Thereafter, her mother earned a master’s degree in social services administration at the University of Chicago. At the age of ten, Arati moved to Lubbock, Texas along with her family. In a media talk, Arati once recalled her childhood incident in which she said that Arati’s mother used to motivate her to pursue a PhD degree in future. According to Arati Prabhakar, she was the first woman who received a PhD degree in applied physics from Caltech in 1984.


Physical Appearance


Height (approx.): 5′ 7″


Weight (approx.): 65 kg


Hair Colour: Grey


Eye Colour: Black


Arati Prabhakar


Family


Parents & Siblings


Her father’s name is Jagdish Chandra Prabhakar. Her father was a former employee at Texas Instruments and was a PhD degree holder from SMU, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas. Later, her father was designated as a faculty member at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Her mother’s name is Raj (Madan) Prabhakar. Arati told a media house in 2020 that her mother worked as a social worker. She added in the same conversation that her mother divorced her father when her mother was in her early thirties. She said,


My parents were married in India in 1950 just as the country was forming and standing up as an independent nation. They had an arranged marriage, and it was an unhappy marriage. They later divorced, something that was inconceivable for an arranged marriage in 1950 from India, but that would happen many, many years later. I have a particularly unusual mother.”


Husband & Children


She has two children.


Career


In 1997, Arati Prabhakar joined Raychem,


Arati Prabhakar while attending a global summit

Arati Prabhakar while attending a global summit


In 2001, Arati Prabhakar began working at U.S. Venture Partners in Menlo Park, California as its Partner and worked till 2011. She looked after investment programs in green technology and information technology startups in the US during her tenure at Venture Partners. In July 2012, Arati Prabhakar joined the On 1 October 2022, Arati Prabhakar joined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as its Director. She was also given the charge of President Joe Biden’s science adviser. Reportedly, she became the is the first woman, first immigrant, and first person of colour to be appointed as the director of OSTP.


Arati Prabhakar while sworning in as the new director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and President Joe Biden’s science adviser in 2022

Arati Prabhakar sworn in as the new director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and President Joe Biden’s science adviser in 2022


Member


In 2012, Arati Prabhakar became a member of the board of directors of SRI International, a member of the U.S. National Academies’ Science Technology and Economic Policy Board, and the College of Engineering Advisory Board at the University of California, Berkeley.


Entrepreneur


A non-profit organisation named


Arati Prabhakar in a newspaper article

Arati Prabhakar in a newspaper article


Honours


Arati Prabhakar is the recipient of the title ‘Texas Tech Distinguished Engineer and a Distinguished Alumna of California Institute of Technology.”


Facts/Trivia



  • Apart from being a US government official, Arati Prabhakar is also a motivational speaker who often speaks about the  
    Arati Prabhakar at DARPA

    Arati Prabhakar at DARPA




  • Arati Prabhakar is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the National Academy of Engineering in America, the governing board for the Pew Research Center, the U.S. National Academies of Science Technology, and the Economic Policy Board.



  • Arati Prabhakar was the fellow for the research work “leadership in partnering between industry and government to promote economic growth through the development of manufacturing technologies for semiconductor devices” in 1997.



  • The computing cards in the US once featured Arati Prabhakar as the Notable Woman.



  • Arati Prabhakar’s contribution to the DARPA was once appreciated by Craig Fields, a former director of Darpa, in a media talk. Craig Fields said that Arati had an unusual combination of technical knowledge, entrepreneurial flair, and individual responsibility. He added,

    Ms Prabhakar has the unusual combination of technical knowledge, entrepreneurial flair and the ability to get things done within government in an agency that emphasized individual responsibility. She had the ability to work with her military customers and understand the needs of the companies involved. She was able to think about long-term goals at the same time, which is a pretty rare set of skills.”





  • In June 2022, in an interview with a media house, Arati Prabhakar revealed that the President of America, Joe Biden, invited her to be a part of his cancer moonshot initiative in the future.
    Arati Prabhakar while attending a press meet

    Arati Prabhakar while attending a press meet







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