United States President-elect Joe Biden has appointed Indian-American Mala Adiga as the policy director for his wife and incoming First Lady Jill Biden.
Adiga has been a senior advisor for Jill and policy advisor for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Jill Biden is expected to focus on education and intends to continue teaching community college classes.
Adiga has in the past worked for the Biden Foundation as director for higher education and military families.
During the Obama administration, she was deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programmes at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and worked in the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues as chief of staff and senior adviser to the ambassador-at-large.
She also served as Director for Human Rights in the National Security Staff’s (NSS) Multilateral and Human Rights Directorate and before that was an attorney at the Department of Justice, where she served as Counsel to the Associate Attorney General.
Adiga earned her JD from the University of Chicago Law School and her MPH from the University of Minnesota. She graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa with a BA in Spanish.