President-elect Joe Biden on Friday named Indian-American Vedant Patel to be the Assistant Press Secretary as he announced the additional members of the White House Communications and Press Staff.
According to an official statement, “President-elect Joe Biden announced additional members of the White House communications and press staff. These diverse, experienced, and talented individuals demonstrate President-elect Biden’s continued commitment to building an administration that looks like America and is ready to deliver results for working families on day one.”
Vedant Patel has earlier served as Regional Communications Director on the Biden-Harris Campaign. During President-elect Biden’s primary campaign, Patel served as the Nevada and Western Primary-States Communications Director. He has also worked as Communications Director to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Western Regional Press Secretary at the Democratic National Committee, and Communications Director to Congressman Mike Honda.
Vedant Patel, born in India and raised in California, is a graduate from University of California-Riverside and the University of Florida.
Vedant Patel is one of the 16 appointments announced by Biden to his White House communications and press staff. Prominent among them are Megan Apper, Director of Research ; Kate Berner, Deputy Communications Director; Rosemary Boeglin, Assistant Press Secretary; Amanda Finney, Chief of Staff for the Press Office and Special Assistant to the Press Secretary; Mike Gwin, Director of Rapid Response and Meghan Hays, Director of Message Planning.
Another Indian-American who is already apart of Team Biden is Dr Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist who traces her roots to a village in Tamil Nadu. She was named to the coronavirus task force. As a co-chair to Joe Biden’s Covid-19 task force is also an Indian-American- surgeon general Vivek Murthy. Murthy’s family hails from Karnataka. He served as a surgeon-general under the Obama administration as well but in 2017, he was asked to step down by the Trump administration.
Apart from the Cabinet and Whitehouse, positions in Joe Biden’s Agency Review Teams or The ARTs are held by Indian-Americans. Former Google Executive & Stanford graduate, Arun Majumdar is the team lead for the Department of Energy ART. A former state health officer for West Virginia Dr Rahul Gupta is leading the transition over the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Kiran Arjandas Ahuja, an American lawyer and activist who served as the Chief of Staff to the Director of the US Office of Personnel Management from 2015 to 2017 has been named Team Lead for Office of Personnel Management.
