Radha Iyengar Plumb confirmed in key Pentagon post

Indian American security expert is an experienced leader with deep technical analytical skills and a proven track record

US Senate has confirmed Indian American security expert Radha Iyengar Plumb as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment by a bipartisan 68-30 vote.

“By a vote of 68-30, the Senate confirmed Executive Calendar #19 Radha Iyengar Plumb as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense,” the US Senate Periodical Press Gallery tweeted on Tuesday.

Read: Biden nominates two Indian American woman to key posts (June 16, 2022)

President Joe Biden nominated Plumb for the key Pentagon job in June 2022. She currently serves as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

In her Linkedin profile, she describes herself as an experienced leader with deep technical analytical skills and a proven track record of working in government, academia, and industry.

Prior to her appointment as chief of staff, she was the director of research and insights for trust & safety at Google, leading their cross functional teams on business analytics, data science, and technical research, according to her official profile.

Before that she served as the global head of policy analysis at Facebook where she focused on high risk/high harm safety and critical international security issues.

Plumb previously was a senior economist at the RAND Corporation where she focused on improving measurement and evaluation of readiness and security efforts across the Department of Defense.

In this capacity, she served as the lead author of several critical reports, including an assessment of the implications of open service for Transgender Service members and a review of safety and suitability screening efforts.

She also held a number of senior staff positions on national security issues at the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the White House National Security Council.

In 2014–2015, Plumb served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Energy, where she led policy processes including budget and policy reviews related to nuclear infrastructure modernization and efforts to increase the safety and resiliency of the energy sector.

She also served as Director of Personnel and Readiness at the National Security Council, where she was involved in executive actions against sexual assault in the military.

Plumb also served as a policy advisor and chief of staff to the Under Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, and as a civilian in Afghanistan conducted measurement and evaluation work in support of the ISAF Commander’s Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team.

Read: US Senate confirms Indian-American Radha Iyengar Plumb as Dy Under Secretary of Defense (April 19, 2023)

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.

Plumb received her PhD and MS in Economics from Princeton University, and she holds a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.