Indian-American Arun Majumdar may find place in Biden’s ‘diverse cabinet’

After doing a bachelors’ at IIT Bombay, Majumdar completed his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He even worked in the Obama administration and is now expected to be a part of the Biden cabinet.

As president-elect Joe Biden along with vice president-elect Kamala Harris aim to make a “diverse cabinet”, media reports suggest that Arun Majumdar could be a part of the administration’s cabinet.

Arun Majumdar has worked in the Obama administration and is now expected to be a part of the Biden cabinet. (Image via Twitter)

Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Provostial chair professor at Stanford University, a faculty member of the departments of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He is also a faculty in the department of photon science at SLAC.

Education and early career

Majumdar completed his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley after doing a bachelor’s at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. His scientific work is in the fields of thermoelectric materials, heat and mass transfer, thermal management, and waste heat recovery. Majumdar has also been the vice president for energy at Google, where he created several energy technology initiatives, especially at the intersection of data, computing and electricity grid.

Majumdar and Obama

But Majumdar is most known for his role in the position of Undersecretary of energy between November 30, 2011, and May 15, 2012, for which he was nominated by President Barack Obama. Before that Majumdar was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to become the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) in 2009, where he served till June 2012.

Majumdar and Biden

In November 2020, Majumdar was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the United States Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. After this media reports said that Majumdar could be a part of the Biden cabinet. If so, all nominees to the cabinet require the Senate’s approval and Majumdar would easily be able to get the approval as he enjoyed bipartisan support during the Obama administration as well.