AAU created the national task force in coordination with the Biden administration’s US India initiative on critical and emerging technology, which seeks to grow technological and industrial collaboration between the two nations.
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Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi and Vice Provost for Penn State Global Roger Brindley have been appointed to key roles on an Association of American Universities (AAU) task force focused on the expansion of research and academic partnerships among higher education institutions in the United States and India.
AAU created the national task force in coordination with the Biden administration’s US India initiative on critical and emerging technology, which seeks to grow technological and industrial collaboration between the two nations.
Bendapudi will help to lead the task force as one of five co-chairs, and Brindley has been appointed as one of 15 task force members. The task force will meet monthly to determine focus areas for bilateral research and education cooperation, to identify existing programs that could provide blueprints for future partnerships, and to formulate strategies on how best to move forward.
Bendapudi was born and raised in India and received a bachelor’s degree and MBA from Andhra University in India before earning her doctorate in marketing from the University of Kansas. “At Penn State, we have long believed that meeting the global challenges of our time requires cooperation and collaboration across individuals, institutions and nations,” said Bendapudi. “I am honored to be selected to co-chair this talented and dedicated team — tasked by the White House — to strengthen interdisciplinary partnerships between American and Indian universities to advance innovations in areas such as semiconductor technology, nuclear energy, unmanned vehicles, space exploration, AI and digital infrastructure.
“India is a dynamic country with more than 600 million people under the age of 25,” Brindley said. “With such extraordinary demographic opportunities and challenges, higher education is primed to play a monumental role in accelerating progress toward upscaling and upskilling students, fostering meaningful research collaborations for the benefit of society, and driving strategic socioeconomic progress for both the United States and India.”
Apart from Robert J Jones, chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Sunil Kumar, current provost of Johns Hopkins University and incoming president of Tufts University, two additional co-chairs have been added by the AAU: Pradeep K. Khosla, chancellor of the University of California San Diego, and Satish K. Tripathi, president of the University at Buffalo (SUNY).
The task force members have many Indians including Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishnan, dean of engineering, Case Western Reserve University; Ravi V. Bellamkonda, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, Emory University; Venu Govindaraju, vice president for research and economic development, University at Buffalo; Amita Gupta, chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University’; Rajesh K. Gupta, professor and Qualcomm endowed chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego; Pradeep Khanna, executive associate vice chancellor for corporate relations and economic development, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Pramod Khargonekar, vice chancellor for research, University of California, Irvine; Padma Raghavan, vice provost for research and innovation, Vanderbilt University; and Ramamoorthy Ramesh, vice president for research, Rice University.
