US President Joe Biden had nominated security expert Radha Iyengar Plumb to the post of Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the latest Indian-American to be named for a key position.
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The US Senate confirmed Indian American Radha Iyengar Plumb as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense. The Senate voted on the confirmation of Radha Iyengar Plumb, of New York, to be a Deputy Under Secretary of Defense. She won by a vote of 68-30. “By a vote of 68-30, the Senate confirmed Executive Calendar #19 Radha Iyengar Plumb to be a Deputy Under Secretary of Defense,” tweeted the US Senate Periodical Press Gallery.
She is currently serving as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and was nominated for the top Pentagon position in June 2022. Prior to her appointment as Chief of Staff, she was the Director of Research and Insights for Trust and Safety at Google and had previously served as Global Head of Policy Analysis at Facebook.
Plumb 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 Defense. From 2014-2015, Plumb served as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Energy, where she led policy processes including budget and policy reviews related to modernizing nuclear infrastructure and efforts to enhance energy sector security and resilience. She has also served as the director of personnel and readiness at the National Security Council where she was instrumental in executive actions on sexual assault in the military.
She also served as a policy advisor and Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, and as a civilian in Afghanistan conducting measurement and assessment work to support the Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team for the Commander, ISAF.
Plumb completed her PhD in economics from Princeton University. At the outset of her career, she was an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Harvard.
