US media reports have indicated that two Indian-Americans – former US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy and Professor Arun Majumdar might find a place in President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet.
The Washington Post and Politico said in their reports that Murthy, currently co-chair of Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board, is likely to bag the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services, while Stanford University Professor Arun Majumdar may get the post of Secretary of Energy.
43-year-old Murthy has been a top advisor to Biden on the coronavirus pandemic. He was appointed the 19th US Surgeon General in 2014 by then President Barack Obama before being asked to step down by the Trump administration.
During his tenure as Surgeon General he drew focus on public health issues such as drug and alcohol addiction, tobacco use, AIDS, the need for physical activity etc.
He was a vice admiral in the US Public Health Service's commissioned corps and is trained in internal medicine.
Other names doing the rounds for Secretary of Health and Human Services are Mandy Cohen, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico governor.
Profesor Majumdar is a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford who served as the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and has been a top advisor to Biden on energy related issues.
Majumdar was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate as the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) in 2009, where he served till 2012.
He is the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University, a faculty member of the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering (by courtesy) and co-Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy as well as a faculty member in the Department of Photon Science at SLAC.
Prior to joining Stanford, Majumdar was the Vice President for Energy at Google.
Among other contenders for energy secretary are Ernest Moniz, former secretary of energy; Dan Reicher, Stanford University scholar and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, former deputy secretary of energy.