Trump Nominates Engineer Arvind Raman as Next NIST Director

President Donald Trump has selected Arvind Raman as his nominee to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Congress received the nomination on Oct. 2 but the White House has not yet publicly announced the move.

Raman is currently dean of engineering at Purdue University, where he has worked as a professor of mechanical engineering since 2000. Raman was born in India and came to the U.S. to pursue a masters degree at Purdue. He then obtained his doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Raman is known for his research on vibrations and nonlinear dynamics, and his work has supported the development of atomic force microscopy. Using research to support global development has also been a focus of Raman’s career. From 2018 to 2023, he served as principal investigator of a $70 million USAID-funded initiative to deliver practical solutions to critical development challenges in low- and middle-income countries, a project which drew criticism from Trump earlier this year.

“$70 million for a center at Purdue to research university-sourced, evidence-based solutions to developmental challenges,” Trump said at a press conference in February as an example of wasteful federal spending. “I mean, these are massive numbers on things that nobody has ever heard about,” Trump said. The administration ultimately terminated the project along with thousands of other USAID grants.

If confirmed by the Senate, Raman will lead NIST at a time when it is facing acute problems from decaying infrastructure. It is also navigating the administration’s upheaval of programs funded by the CHIPS and Science Act. NIST is currently led by Craig Burkhardt, who has served as acting director since Biden-appointed NIST Director Laurie Locascio stepped down in January.

Raman may have a quicker path to confirmation than earlier nominees by Trump. Many of them had been stalled in the Senate until Republicans changed the rules in September to permit most types of nominations to be approved en bloc by simple majority vote. The Senate confirmed an initial batch of science agency nominees on Sept. 18 and another batch today, including directors for the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.