Obama appoints IITian for key energy research post

US President Barack Obama has nominated Indian American technocrat Arun Majumdar to a key administration post dealing with energy research.

Majumdar will be the Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy in the US Department of Energy.

A product of Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, Majumdar is currently the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Obama also announced his intent to nominate Daniel W Yohannes as Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Challenge Corporation and Gustavo Aranavat as US Executive Director to the Inter-American Development Bank.

"These individuals have proven that they will bring skill, dedication and expertise in these important areas to my administration, and I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years," Obama said in a statement.

Majumdar has had a highly distinguished research career in the science and engineering of energy conversion, transport, and storage ranging from molecular and nanoscale level to large energy systems, the White House announcement said.

For his pioneering work, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. At Berkeley Labs and University of California, he helped shape several strategic initiatives in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy as well as energy storage, and testified before Congress on how to reduce energy consumption in buildings.

He has served on the advisory committee of the National Science Foundation's engineering directorate, was a member of the advisory council to the materials sciences and engineering division of Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences, and was an advisor on nanotechnology to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Majumdar has also been an entrepreneur and has served as an advisor to startup companies and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

He received his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his PhD in 1989 from the University of California, Berkeley.

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