The US Senate has confirmed Radha Iyengar Plumb, a national security expert, as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the latest Indian-American to be named by the Biden administration for a key position.
President Joe Biden had nominated Radha Iyengar Plumb, currently serving as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, to this prestigious position in June 2022.
“By a vote of 68-30, the Senate confirmed Radha Iyengar Plumb to be the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense,” US Senate Periodical Press Gallery tweeted on Tuesday.
Plumb had previously worked as a senior economist at the RAND corporation focused on improving the measurement and evaluation of readiness and security efforts across the Department of Défense and was previously Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Défense.
She has also worked at Google and Facebook. Plumb’s research covers a range of areas related to violence reduction and prevention, and she has a PhD in economics from Princeton University. In her LinkedIn profile, she describes herself as an experienced leader with deep technical analytical skills.
President Joe Biden had nominated Radha Iyengar Plumb, currently serving as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Defence, to this prestigious position in June 2022.
“By a vote of 68-30, the Senate confirmed Radha Iyengar Plumb to be the Deputy Under Secretary of Defence,” US Senate Periodical Press Gallery tweeted on Tuesday.
Prior to her appointment as the Chief of Staff, she was the Director of Research and Insights for Trust and Safety at Google and had previously served as the Global Head of Policy Analysis at Facebook.
Plumb previously was a Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation where she focused on improving the measurement and evaluation of readiness and security efforts across the Department of Defence.
She also held a number of senior staff positions on national security issues at the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the White House National Security Council.
At the outset of her career, she was an Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics and did her postdoctoral work at Harvard.
Plumb received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Economics from Princeton University, and she holds a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to her profile released by the White House in June last year.
In her Linkedin profile, Plumb describes herself as an experienced leader with deep technical analytic skills and a demonstrated history of working in the government, academia, and industry.