List of Indian Americans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of Indian Americans who are famous, have made significant contributions to the American culture or society politically, artistically or scientifically, or have appeared in the news numerous times:
| Lists of Americans |
| by U.S. state |
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| Nicaraguan | Nigerian |
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| Scottish | Serbian |
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| Vietnamese | Welsh |
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Contents |
[edit] List
[edit] Academic
- Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar, mathematician, singularity theory and Abhyankar's conjecture of finite group theory.
- Akhil Amar, Professor of Law at Yale Law School, an expert on constitutional law and criminal procedure.
- Vikram Amar, Professor of Law at U.C. Hastings College of the Law.
- Radhakishan Baheti [2], program director at National Science Foundation, Fellow of IEEE
- Homi K. Bhabha, post-colonial theorist at Harvard.
- Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Chicago. Creator of the controversial oil-eating bacterium used in Gulf War.
- K. Mani Chandy, Simon Ramo Professor of Computer Science at the California Institute of Technology.
- Anil Gupta [3], Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, and important philosopher and logician.
- Dipak C. Jain, Dean of the J. L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
- Aravind Joshi, computer scientist, defined the tree-adjoining grammar formalism.
- Thomas Kailath, Emeritus Professor of Engineering at Stanford University
- Subhash Kak[4], Head of the Department, Oklahoma State University, Researcher in Neural Networks and Cryptography.
- Narendra Karmarkar, mathematician, inventor of Karmarkar algorithm.
- Neal Katyal, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law School, lead counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
- Anil Nerode, mathematician, proved the Myhill-Nerode Theorem.
- C.K. Prahalad, leading management guru.
- Raghuram Rajan, IMF Chief Economist, inaugural winner of the Fischer Black Prize.
- Raj Reddy, Turing Award winner and founder of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
- Amartya Sen, The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 1998 (Nobel Prize for Economics).
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, post-colonial theorist, literary critic and deconstructionist who teaches at Columbia University.
- Surain Subramaniam, professor of international relations and prolific author developing the theory of Asian Values
- Madhu Sudan, computer science professor at MIT, winner Rolf Nevanlinna Prize.
- George Varghese, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California San Diego
- Divakar Viswanath, mathematician who discovered Viswanath's constant.
- S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan, mathematician who specialised in probability, winner of the Abel Prize
[edit] Science and Technology
- Kalpana Chawla, female NASA Space Shuttle astronaut, and space shuttle mission specialist
- Sunita Williams, NASA astronaut (second woman of Indian descent to head into space)
- Mani Lal Bhaumik, inventor of excimer laser technology.
- Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1983.
- Anil Dash, blogger and technologist
- Narinder Singh Kapany, engineer, called the "Father of Fiber Optics".
- Pramod Khargonekar Control Theorist, Dean and Eckis Professor, College of Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida,
- Om Malik, technology journalist and blogger
- Arun Netravali, scientist, former President, Bell Labs, former CTO, Lucent.
- C. Kumar N. Patel, developed the carbon dioxide laser, used as a cutting tool in surgery and industry.
- Mahadev Satyanarayanan, computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, pioneered research in mobile and pervasive computing
- Amit Singhal, Google Fellow, the designation the company reserves for its elite master engineers in the area of “ranking algorithm”
- George Sudarshan, physicist, author - first to propose the existence of Tachyon
[edit] Medicine
- Balamurali Ambati, physician, world's youngest doctor at age 17.
- Paul Antony MD, MPH is the Chief Medical Officer for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
- Atul Gawande, general and endocrine surgeon , medical author, National Book Award finalist.
- Har Gobind Khorana, Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine (1968).
- Sanjay Gupta, surgeon-physician and CNN cable news Chief Medical Correspondent. Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Emory University
- Priyesh Patel- Founder of the Norp Institute for Women.
[edit] Arts and entertainment
- Aziz Ansari- Comedian and MTV personality
- Kim Singh, Producer of films and television shows. " The Kim Singh Show "
- Sunkrish Bala- actor
- Samrat Chakrabarti - actor, musician
- Sameer Bhattacharya, one of two guitarists in the Texas alternative rock band Flyleaf.
- Summer Bishil- (a quarter Indian)
- Bizzy Bone - Rapper (Quarter Indian)
- Jay Chandrasekhar- actor, comedian, writer, and film director
- Anand Chandrasekaran - entrepreneur and filmmaker
- Rory Cochrane, actor
- Sabu Dastagir, film actor, USAF tailgunner in World War II
- Noureen DeWulf, actress, star of 2007 Oscar Winning West Bank Story, also star in The Comebacks
- Dhan Gopal Mukerji, first successful man of letters, winner of Newbery Medal 1928
- Zakir Hussain, tabla maestro
- Vijay Iyer, jazz musician and composer
- Archana Joglekar-Noted Kathak dancer
- Norah Jones, singer, Grammy award winner 2003 (half-Indian - daughter of Ravi Shankar)
- Anchal Joseph Model, seen on show America's Next Top Model
- Mindy Kaling writer, producer, actor on The Office. Plays the character Kelly Kapoor.
- Tony Kanal, Bass player for No Doubt, two-time Grammy award winner, producer, songwriter
- Ravi Kapoor- Actor
- Padma Lakshmi, model, actress, and author
- Aasif Mandvi, actor
- Sanjaya Malakar, contestant in top 12 of American Idol (season 6)
- Shelly Malil, Film and TV actor
- Benny Mathews, Film and Music video director
- Ajay Mehta, TV actor
- Zubin Mehta - conductor, New York Philharmonic Orchestra
- Saira Mohan, model
- Govindini Murty, co-founder of Liberty film festival. ref: http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/
- Ajay Naidu- actor
- Mira Nair, filmmaker, won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for an Oscar for Salaam Bombay!
- Sunil Nayar, TV writer and producer, a Producer of CSI: Miami
- Kunal Nayyar, actor (The Big Bang Theory)
- Maulik Pancholy - actor in 30 Rock, Weeds
- Kal Penn, film actor (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Superman Returns)[1]
- Sendhil Ramamurthy, actor, plays Mohinder Suresh in Heroes
- Navi Rawat, guest star on The O.C. and regular cast member on NUMB3RS
- Naren Shankar, TV writer, producer and director, an Executive Producer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
- Sheetal Sheth, actress
- Raje Shwari, R&B singer
- M. Night Shyamalan, filmmaker, actor
- Manick Sorcar, animator, artist, and producer
- Babu Subramaniam, TV series Director and Assistant Director
- Kim Thayil, guitarist for rock group Soundgarden
- Paul Varghese comedian from Dallas, Texas appeared on Last Comic Standing
[edit] Business and industry
- Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail
- Amar Bose, physicist and founder of Bose Corporation
- Gurbaksh Chahal, Internet Entrepreneurs
- Gururaj Deshpande, founder of Sycamore Networks
- Vinod Dham, former microprocessor designer for Intel and creator of the Pentium processor
- Rono Dutta, former President, United Airlines; Chairman, Air Sahara
- Gunjan Bagla, Management Consultant, Managing Director, Amritt; Author Doing Business in 21st Century India
- Rakesh Gangwal, former CEO and Chairman, US Airways Group
- Rajat Gupta, former Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
- Rajiv Gupta, a General Manager of Hewlett Packard
- Ajit Jain, head of National Indemnity, possible successor to Warren Buffett
- Anshu Jain, managing director and global head of capital markets at Deutsche Bank
- Naveen Jain, former project manager at Microsoft and founder of InfoSpace.com
- Vinod Khosla, general partner, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; co-founder, Sun Microsystems
- Victor Menezes Chairman of the Clearing House Association, earlier been Chairman and CEO of Citibank and headed Citigroup’s Emerging Markets
- Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo.
- Shantanu Narayen is the current CEO of Adobe Systems.
- Narendra Patni, Founder of Patni Computer Systems
- Arvind Raghunathan, Managing Director and Head of Global Arbitrage at Deutsche Bank, Fellow of the Institute for Combinatorics
- Kanwal Rekhi, businessman and engineer, Former EVP & CTO of Novell, Venture capitalist
- Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup
- Suhas Patil, founder, Cirrus Logic
- Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone Inc. Headed the Vodafone takeover of Hutch-Esser Communications Inc.
- Jay Sidhu, Former Chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bancorp
- Sanjiv Sidhu, founder and CEO of i2 Technologies, a B2B Supply Chain integrator
- Pradeep Sindhu, Co-founder and CTO of Juniper Networks
- Ram Shriram, Businessman, co-founder of Junglee.com and board member at Google
- Srik Soogoor, Founder & CEO, Visvo, Inc. a Search Engine Company at Visvo
- Rana Talwar, banker, former Group CEO of Standard Chartered Bank
- Pradeep K Jaisingh , MBA, CEO--International Oncology--www.internationaloncology.com
- Padmasree Warrior,is the New Chief Technology Officer of Cisco Systems, (NASDAQ:CSCO) and the former CTO of Motorola, Inc Motorola She is named one of the four "Women to Watch 2006" by FORTUNE Magazine [5].
- Dr.Prem Reddy, Founder and Chairman of Prime Healthcare Services, a healthcare management corporation in Southern California.
- Ramani Ayer, Chairman and CEO, The Hartford Financial Services Group, a Fortune 100 Investment and Insurance Company.
- Vyomesh Joshi, Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company.
[edit] Literature and media
- Agha Shahid Ali, poet
- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author
- Rajiv Chandrasekaran, assistant managing editor for continuous news, The Washington Post, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City (published by Knopf)
- Deepak Chopra, author and speaker
- Zain Verjee, CNN anchor
- Sumi Das, CNN national correspondent
- Shihab Rattansi, CNN International Anchor
- Aneesh Raman, CNN Middle East correspondent
- Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN senior medical correspondent
- Ali Velshi, business news anchor for CNN
- Dinesh D'Souza, author and conservative political commentator
- Pico Iyer, author and journalist for Time Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, and The New York Review of Books
- Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
- Bobby Mehta, CEO of HSBC North America
- Mish Michaels, meteorologist for the Weather Channel and the CBS News affiliate in Boston
- Bharati Mukherjee, author
- Dhan Gopal Mukerji, the first successful Indian man of letters in US
- Aimee Nezhukumatathil, poet
- Uma Pemmaraju, senior news anchor for Fox News Channel
- Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor of National Review magazine
- Snigdha Prakash, NPR Correspondent [6]
- Chitra Raghavan, chief legal affairs correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, former NPR correspondent
- Janaki Ram, author
- Vikram Seth, poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist
- Raj Shah Founder, Desh Videsh Magazine ( http://www.www.deshvidesh.com ) A Magazine Promoting the Indian Sub-contintent.
- Shauna Singh Baldwin, novelist, won the Commonwealth Writers Prizfor Best Book
- Sreenath Sreenivasan, Columbia University professor and WABC-TV technology reporter
- Dr. Abraham Verghese noted Doctor and Author; "In My Own Country" and "My Tennis Partner"
- Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek
- Kiran Desai, winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize
- Anita Desai, author
- Kaavya Viswanathan, teen-aged novelist, once famous for having a six-figure book deal and a Disney film, now notorious as a plagiarist.
- Ravi Batra, bestselling author and economist
- Thrity Umrigar, author of Bombay Time.
[edit] Politics
- Harvinder "Harry" Anand, Mayor of Laurel Hollow, New York, the first Indian-American Mayor in New York.
- Kumar P. Barve, State legislator and Majority Leader of the Maryland House of Delegates
- Raj Peter Bhakta, entrepreneur, former The Apprentice contestant, and 2006 Republican U.S. House nominee
- Satveer Chaudhary, state Senator in Minnesota.
- Joy Cherian, 1st Asian and Indian American head of the EEOC
- Upendra Chivukula, state legislator (New Jersey General Assembly); first Indian-American elected to the NJ legislature.
- Swati Dandekar, an Iowa State Representative
- Bhagwan Dashairya, 2006 nominee for Governor of Michigan of the U.S. Taxpayers Party.
- Mervyn M. Dymally, Prominent Democrat politician; current California State Assemblyman; former State Senator, Lieutenant Governor, and Congressman; first Trinidadian to serve in California State Senate and as California Lt. Governor
- Kamala Harris, District Attorney of San Francisco; first Indian-American elected as a D.A. in the United States. Her sister, Maya Harris, was made the Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California in October 2006.
- Bobby Jindal, former U.S. Congressman and current Governor of Louisiana; Republican.
- Kris Kolluri, New Jersey Commissioner of Transportation.
- Raj Mukherji, New Jersey lobbyist and businessman.
- Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian-American congressman, was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California
- S. R. Sidarth, Democratic campaign volunteer who sparked the George Allen "Macaca" incident.
- Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary General for Communications and Public Information for the United Nations. Candidate for UN general secretary post
- Nikki Randhawa Haley, South Carolina legislator, First Republican Indian American state legislator elected in the US
- Rachel Paulose first woman to become a U.S. Attorney in Minnesota, US Attorney for the District of Minnesota
- Dr. Arjinderpal Sekhon, Ran for Congress from California's 2nd congressional district
- Harry Sidhu, first Indian American elected to Anaheim City Council, November 2004; candidate for California's 33rd Senate District.
- Dinesh D'Souza, Influential Conservative Thinker and Former Policy Analyst in the Reagan White House.
- Amit Singh; Republican candidate for Congress from Virginia's 8th congressional district
- Chirinjeev Kathuria; Republican candidate for Senate (16 Mar 2004) from Illinois. Is of Sikh background; businessman, medical doctor, and politician. Was running to fill soon-to-be vacated seat of U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald
[edit] Religion
- K.A. Paul, founder of the Global Peace Initiative
- Reverend Kiran Sankhla, the first female Hindu chaplain in the U.S.
- Ed Viswanathan, author of Am I A Hindu?
- Ramananda Prasad, founder of the International Gita Society
- Ravi Zacharias, Evangelical Protestant author and apologetic
- Muzammil Siddiqi, Ph.D., Chairman, Fiqh Council of North America
- Rajan Zed, Hindu chaplain to read first Hindu prayer in United States Senate.
[edit] Scripps National Spelling Bee Champions
- Anurag Kashyap, 2005
- Pratyush Buddiga, 2002
- George Abraham Thampy 2000 [7]
- Nupur Lala, 1999
- Rageshree Ramachandran, 1988
- Balu Natarajan, 1985
- Sameer Mishra, 2008
[edit] Sports
- Sanjay Beach was a former NFL wide receiver. He played for the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers.
- Mohini Bhardwaj, first Indian American Olympic medalist, gymnastics
- Brandon Chillar, NFL player, linebacker for the St. Louis Rams.
- Sunil Gulati in charge of American Soccer Federation
- Laxmi Poruri, first Indian-born female professional tennis player
- Rajeev Ram, tennis player
- Sonjay Dutt, TNA Pro Wrestler
[edit] Others
- Preeta D. Bansal, former Solicitor General of the State of New York and Commissioner and Past Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
- Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of Global Fund for Women.
- Sabita Singh, first judge of Indian descent in Massachusetts history
- Bhagat Singh Thind, civil rights figure, lecturer, author
- Urvashi Vaid, famous gay rights activist
- Dr. Abraham George, Philanthropist Humanitarian, Founder of The George Foundation (TGF)
