Hill Heat

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a full committee hearing on Wednesday, July 20, 2022, at 10 a.m. EDT to consider President Biden’s nomination of Dr. Arati Prabhakar to be Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

• Dr. Arati Prabhakar to be Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (PN2267)

Dr. Arati Prabhakar served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from 2012 to 2017. Prabhakar was the first woman, at 34 years old, to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). From 1993 to 1997, she helped take the Manufacturing Extension Partnership from seed stage to national scale to boost the competitiveness of small- and mid-size manufacturers, and also the Advanced Technology Program to stimulate early-stage advanced technology development. Prabhakar spent 15 years in Silicon Valley, working to bring R&D to deployment as a company executive and as a venture capitalist. Prabhakar’s family immigrated from India to the United States when she was three years old. She 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.