Bangalore: Arati Prabhakar, a New Delhi born Indian American has been appointed as the head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by the Obama administration .It is an agency of the United States Department of Defense which works towards the development of new technology for use by the military.

It’s not the first time Arati is going to work with DARPA; she has served the agency for seven years (from 1986 to 1993) and was also behind the founding of DARPA's Microelectronics Technology Office. In the year 1993, President Clinton appointed her as the director of the 3000 person US National Institute of Standards and Technology.

She will be the first Indian-American chief of DARPA, one of the most important agencies of Pentagon (Department of Defense).

“Dr. Prabhakar’s Department of Defense leadership, when coupled with her experience with technical communities in Silicon Valley and beyond, make her the ideal candidate to continue Darpa’s impressive track record of success,” says Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall, reports Danger room.

Arati, a venture capitalist and technology analyst will take charge of the new post from the end of this month. She happens to be the first woman to win a Ph.D. in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology.

Arati received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology.