On Friday, US President-elect Joe Biden appointed an Indian-American, Mala Adiga as the policy director of his wife Jill Biden, who will be the First Lady of the United States. Choosing an experienced education policy hand as the incoming First Lady focuses on education and plans to continue teaching community college classes.
Ms Adiga has served as a senior policy advisor on the Biden-Kamala Harris campaign and also as a senior advisor to Jill Biden. Previously, Ms Adiga was director for Higher Education and Military Families at the Biden Foundation.
During Obama’s administration, she was deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programmes at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and worked in the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues as chief of staff and senior adviser to the ambassador-at-large.
A native of Illinois, Ms Adiga is a graduate of Grinnell College, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and the University of Chicago Law School.
Ms Adiga who is a lawyer had been a clerk for a federal and had worked for a Chicago law firm before joining the campaign of former President Barack Obama in 2008 as a counsel to the associate attorney general.
Biden on Friday announced the names of four new members of his White House senior staff.
Louisa Terrell, who served as Executive Director for the Biden Foundation, will become Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Carlos Elizondo, who was social secretary for Jill Biden during the Obama administration, will be White House Social Secretary. Ambassador Cathy Russell will be assigned the role of Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.
