President Joe Biden is appointing Padma Raghavan, a leading Indian American researcher, and computer scientist, as a member of the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science

FREMONT, CA: The President’s committee considers applicants for the National Medal of Science, a Presidential honor bestowed on persons who have made significant contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, engineering, social, and behavioral sciences. The National Medal of Science has been given to 506 renowned scientists and engineers whose careers span decades of research and development since its inception.

Padma Raghavan, a notable Indian-American scholar, and computer scientist have been appointed to the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science by President Joe Biden. Raghavan is the inaugural Vice Provost for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, according to her White House page. She was previously the Associate Vice President for Research and Strategic Initiatives at Penn State University, as well as the founding Director of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering.

In 2013, Raghavan was honored as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for her contributions to the creation of energy-efficient supercomputing. She also serves on the editorial boards of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, as well as the Advisory Boards of the National Science Foundation's Computing and Information Science and Engineering Directorate and Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. Raghavan also participates on several National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine boards, including the Army Research Laboratory's Technical Advisory Boards on Computational Science and Information Sciences.

Biden also plans to add ten new members to the National Medal of Science committee. May Berenbaum, Rafael Bras, Joan Ferrini-Mundy, Erika Gonzalez, Juan Maldacena, Valerie Montgomery Rice, Craig Partridge, Pedro A. Sanchez, Robert Sellers, and Cherese Winstead are among them.