Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Indian-American Bhavya Lal will head the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) in the USA, media reported on Tuesday.
NASA has appointed Lal as Acting Chief of Staff. No other Indian-American has risen to the prestigious position so far.
After the election of Kamala Harris, daughter of Indian-American Shyamala Gopalan, as the 49th Vice-President of the US, Lal’s appointment by the White House is important as NASA is seen as the global hub of space research.
In the last few months, many Indian-Americans were elected in different states. The Biden Administration has also nominated more than 20 Indian-Americans to key positions.
Media reports on Tuesday said Lal will also serve as the senior advisor for budget and finance at NASA. Earlier, she had served as a member of the Biden Presidential Transition Agency Review Team for NASA and oversaw its transition under the Biden Administration.
In a statement, NASA said she brings extensive experience in engineering and space technology, serving as a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) from 2005 to 2020.
There, she led the analysis of space technology, strategy, and policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and National Space Council, as well as federal space-oriented organizations, including NASA, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community.
She has applied her expertise in engineering systems and innovation theory and practice to topics in space, with recent projects on commercial activities in low-Earth orbit and deep space, in-orbit servicing assembly and manufacturing, small satellites, human exploration, space nuclear power, space exploration, and space science. She has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, reports said.
Lal is an active member of the space technology and policy community, having chaired, co-chaired, or served on five high-impact National Academy of Science committees. She served two consecutive terms on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Federal Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing and was an External Council member of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program and the Technology, Innovation, and Engineering Advisory Committee of the NASA Advisory Council.
Before joining STPI, Lal was president of C-STPS LLC, a science and technology policy research and consulting firm. Prior to that, she was the Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Studies at Abt Associates, a global policy research consultancy based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lal also has served on five National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Committees including, most recently, one on Space Nuclear Propulsion Technologies that is set for release in 2021.
She earned a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in nuclear engineering, as well as a Master of Science degree in technology and policy, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and holds a doctorate in public policy and public administration from George Washington University. She is a member of both the nuclear engineering and public policy honor societies.
