President Trump to Nominate Sethuraman Panchanathan as Next NSF Director


December 2019

On December 19, President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Sethuraman Panchanathan to serve as director of the National Science Foundation.

Panchanathan currently serves as the executive vice president of ASU Knowledge Enterprise and the chief research and innovation officer at Arizona State University, where he is also the founding director of the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing. He was appointed to the National Science Board in 2014 and served as the chair of its Committee on Strategy. He also served as a member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Panchanathan is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the International Society of Optical Engineering. He earned his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1986 and his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Ottawa in 1989.