Quote:Biden picks former DARPA director Prabhakar as next science adviser

WASHINGTON — President Biden will soon nominate Arati Prabhakar, a physicist and former DARPA director, to serve as his next top science adviser, the White House announced on Tuesday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Prabhakar would replace the genomics researcher Eric Lander, who resigned as the head of the White House science office in February amid a workplace-bullying scandal.

The new post would be Prabhakar’s third tour as head of a federal science office. She ran DARPA, the high-stakes military research agency, from 2012 to early 2017, and served as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the 1990s.

“Dr. Prabhakar is a brilliant and highly-respected engineer and applied physicist and will lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy to leverage science, technology, and innovation to expand our possibilities, solve our toughest challenges, and make the impossible possible,” President Biden said in a statement.

While the Senate considers Prabhakar’s nomination, Francis Collins and Alondra Nelson will continue serving as the president’s interim science adviser and acting head of the White House science office, respectively. Nelson, a renowned social sciences researcher, had previously served as Lander’s deputy. Collins, who recently stepped aside after 12 years leading the National Institutes of Health, was called into duty in the wake of Lander’s resignation.

If confirmed, Prabhakar would also serve as a member of Biden’s cabinet, an honor only bestowed to one science adviser previously: Lander. She would also be the first woman or person of color to serve in the role.

Prabhakar, 63, would inherit the White House science office at a tenuous moment for its science policy agenda. Her responsibilities would likely include overseeing the administration’s recently relaunched “Cancer Moonshot” and the launch of ARPA-H, the new life sciences research office modeled after DARPA.

She could also be tasked with recruitment for a number of high-level vacancies in the federal government’s scientific ranks: namely, new directors for ARPA-H, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Cancer Institute. Collins, however, told STAT in a recent interview that he hoped to finalize selections for those jobs “within weeks,” meaning the new leaders might already have been chosen by the time Prabhakar is confirmed.

The selection of a former DARPA director is especially noteworthy in light of Biden’s signature scientific initiative: ARPA-H, a project explicitly modeled after the renowned Pentagon research office.

Prabhakar has been an outspoken critic of the administration’s plan to house ARPA-H within the NIH — putting her at odds with Collins, the man she’s likely to replace.

Between stints in Washington, Prabhakar has worked as a venture capitalist focusing on environmentally friendly startups and information technology companies. More recently, she founded Actuate, a nonprofit focused on transforming the U.S. innovation ecosystem.

(06-24-2022, 06:19 AM)Brotherman Wrote: But end the madness now, when does the madness end? 

I suppose the belief is poor stupid naves and proms are just going to melt into the jelly roll as easy peasy jelly squeazy as they want. 

They will be the majority for sure, then they will have a minority of those with stupid fucking questions and guns and shit. 

If they cancel beer consider me snuffed!