Arati Prabhakar

Arati Prabhakar (born February 2, 1959) is an American engineer and public official. From October 3, 2022 to January 20, 2025, she served as the 12th director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy ("OSTP") (aka the Science Advisor to the President in other administrations). Via her service as OSTP Director, she also served in the President's cabinet.

From 1993 to 1997, Prabhakar served as the 10th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the first woman to hold the position. Prabhakar served as 20th Director of DARPA (United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) from 2012 to 2017. In 2019, she founded and became CEO of Actuate, a data-focused nonprofit organization.

Prabhakar's family immigrated to the United States from New Delhi, India, when she was three; her mother was seeking an advanced degree in social work in Chicago. Prabhakar grew up in Lubbock, Texas, from age ten. Her mother encouraged her to pursue a doctorate from a very early age.

In 1979, she obtained a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. She earned an M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1980 and a Ph.D. in applied physics in 1984, both from the California Institute of Technology. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in applied physics from Caltech.

After receiving her PhD, she went to Washington, D.C., on a 1984 to 1986 congressional fellowship with the Office of Technology Assessment. Prabhakar subsequently worked at DARPA from 1986 to 1993, initially as a program manager but later as founding director of DARPA's Microelectronics Technology Office.

At the age of 34, Prabhakar was appointed as head of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a position she held from 1993 to 1997. After NIST, she was the Chief Technology Officer and senior vice president of Raychem from 1997 to 1998. She was then the vice president and later president of Interval Research from 1998 to 2000.

She joined U.S. Venture Partners from 2001 to 2011, focusing on investment in green technology and information technology startups. On July 30, 2012, she became the head of DARPA, replacing Regina E. Dugan. She left DARPA in January 2017.

Prabhakar was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford 2017–18. In 2019, she started Actuate, a nonprofit organization focused on issues including climate change and chronic diseases.

In 2022, Prabhakar was appointed by President Joe Biden as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Science and Technology Advisor to the President, replacing Eric Lander upon his departure.

This made her the first woman and person of color to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the first woman and first person of color to be the top science and technology advisor to the President.

Prabhakar was among Biden's top advisors on matters regarding artificial intelligence (AI) regulation, where she has endorsed AI safeguards. Under her leadership, OSTP contributed to improving health outcomes with the Biden Cancer Moonshot, promoting research and strategies to address climate and nature, and strengthening federally funded research and development.

On July 25, 2025, Prabhakar filed an amicus brief in the case of New York v. Trump (25–1236 and 25-1314), the case brought by 23 attorneys general and the governor of Kentucky against the Trump administration’s federal funding freezes and grant cancellations. Many of the plaintiffs and amicus filers challenged the authority of the president to redirect Congressionally appropriated funds. Prabhakar’s brief details the lasting harms that the freeze will have on the efforts of scientific researchers who innovate for the nation’s health, security, and economy. It further warns that the freeze has created lasting damage to the United States’ status as a leader in scientific innovation, weakening the nation’s pipeline of scientists and engineers and depriving Americans of future scientific advancements.

Prabhakar was a University of California Berkeley Executive Fellow in Applied Technology Policy in 2025, and delivered the 2025 commencement address for UC Berkeley’s School of Information.

Prabhakar is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and was named IEEE Fellow in 1997 for "leadership in partnering between industry and government to promote economic growth through the development of manufacturing technologies for semiconductor devices". She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She has also been named a Texas Tech Distinguished Engineer and a Distinguished Alumna of California Institute of Technology.

She was a member of the governing board for the Pew Research Center and a member of the U.S. National Academies' Science Technology and Economic Policy Board. She was a member of the board of directors of SRI International in 2012, and was also 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.

Prabhakar is featured in the Notable Women in Computing cards.

In 2024, TIME magazine listed Prabhakar among 100 most influential people in AI.

• Interview of Arati Prabhakar by David Zierler on August 11, 2020, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA
• Appearances on C-SPAN