List of Indian Americans

This is a list of notable Indian Americans, including both original immigrants who obtained American citizenship and their American descendants.

To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Indian American or must have references showing they are Indian American and are notable.

List

Nobel Prize

• Har Gobind Khorana, Nobel Prize for Medicine, (1968). (Nobel Laureate)
• Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, Nobel Prize for Physics, (1983). (Nobel Laureate)
• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, (2009). (Nobel Laureate)
• Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize for Economics, (1998). (Nobel Laureate)

Academic

Dean/President

• Beheruz Sethna, current president of the University of West Georgia.
• Molly Easo Smith, current president of Manhattanville College
• Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School
• Sunil Kumar, Dean of University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Vijay K. Dhir, Dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
• Pradeep Khosla, Dean of Carnegie Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University
• Vijay Kumar (roboticist), Associate Dean of School of Engineering and Applied Science at University of Pennsylvania.
• Dipak C. Jain, current Dean of INSEAD and former Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Professors

• Narayan Hosmane, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Illinois University (winner of Humboldt Prize [twice] for Chemistry, [2001 & 2008]).
• Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago; also International Monetary Fund Chief Economist (winner of Fischer Black Prize).
• Madhu Sudan, Professor of computer science at MIT (winner of the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize and Gödel Prize).
• C. R. Rao, Professor at Penn State University and Research Professor at the University at Buffalo (awarded the National Medal of Science)
• Arogyaswami Paulraj, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University (awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Govt. of India)
• Akhil Amar, Professor of Law at Yale Law School
• Salman Akhtar, Professor at the Jefferson Medical College
• Vikram Amar, Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis School of Law.
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Professor at Columbia University.
• J. N. Reddy, Professor and holder of the Oscar S. Wyatt Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Scholar

• Sanjay Subrahmanyam, holder of Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair of Indian History and scholar at UCLA.

Mathematician

• S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan, NYU mathematician who specialised in probability, winner of the Abel Prize and Steele Prize.
• Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar, mathematician, singularity theory and Abhyankar's conjecture of finite group theory
• Anil Nerode, mathematician, proved the Myhill-Nerode Theorem.
• Narendra Karmarkar, mathematician, inventor of Karmarkar algorithm.

Science and technology

• Ajay Bhatt : Co-Inventor of the USB. Chief Client Platform Architect at Intel
• Anil Dash : Blogger and technologist
• Raj Reddy : Founder of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, winner of the Turing Award.
• Arun Netravali : Scientist. Former President of Bell Labs. Former CTO of Lucent. A pioneer of digital technology including HDTV and MPEG4.
• C. Kumar N. Patel : Developed the carbon dioxide laser, used as a cutting tool in surgery and industry.
• Khem Shahani : Microbiologist who conducted pioneer research on probiotics, he discovered the DDS-1 strain of Lactobacillus acidophilus
• Arjun Makhijani : Electrical and nuclear engineer who is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
• George Sudarshan : Physicist, author - first to propose the existence of Tachyon
• Kalpana Chawla : Female NASA Space Shuttle astronaut, and space shuttle mission specialist
• Jogesh Pati : Theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, College Park.
• Krishan Sabnani : Engineer and Senior Vice President of the Networking Research Laboratory at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs in New Jersey
• Mahadev Satyanarayanan : Computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Pioneered research in mobile and pervasive computing
• Mani Lal Bhaumik : Contributor excimer laser technology.
• Narinder Singh Kapany : Engineer, called the "Father of Fiber Optics".
• Om Malik : Technology journalist and blogger
• Pramod Khargonekar : Control Theorist, Dean and Eckis Professor, College of Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida,

• Rangaswamy Srinivasan : in the Inventors’ Hall of Fame for pioneering work on excimer laser surgery.
• Siva S. Banda : Aerospace engineer and researcher, recipient of a Silver Medal from the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Presidential Rank Award, and elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering
• Vinod Dham : Designed the Intel Pentium Chip Processor (Know as the Father of the "Pentium Chip")

Medicine

• Yellapragada Subbarao, Harvard doctor & scientist - discovered folic acid
• 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)
• Rama P. Coomaraswamy, Cardiac surgeon
• E. Premkumar Reddy, World Famous Oncologist and Director of Fels institute of cancer research and molecular biology at temple university
• Atul Gawande, General and endocrine surgeon, professor, medical author, and National Book Award finalist
• Amit Patel, Cardiovascular Surgeon and Stem Cell Researcher - First person to inject stem cells directly into the heart
• Sangeeta Bhatia, Harvard-MIT doctor & scientist - engineer of artificial liver cells
• Sanjay Gupta, Neurosurgeon & CNN chief medical correspondent

Musician

• Kim Thayil, lead guitarist for Grammy Award-winning rock band Soundgarden.
• Norah Jones, musician, Grammy Award winner, daughter of Ravi Shankar.
• Tony Kanal, two-time Grammy Award winner, bass player for No Doubt.
• Sameer Bhattacharya, one of two guitarists in the Texas alternative rock band Flyleaf.
• Rozonda Thomas or Chilli, member of TLC
• Bizzy Bone, Rapper (one-quarter Indian), member of the Cleveland rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
• Ángel, is of Indian heritage-born American rapper and poet.
• Sanjaya Malakar, a finalist on the sixth season of American Idol.
• Anoop Desai, a finalist on the eighth season of American Idol.
• Zubin Mehta, former conductor, New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Zarin Mehta, executive director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Vijay Iyer, jazz musician and Composer.

Actors and actresses

• Kal Penn, Actor
• Noureen DeWulf, Actress
• Sendhil Ramamurthy, Actor
• Aziz Ansari, actor
• Imran Khan, Actor
• Navi Rawat, Actress
• Shishir Kurup, Actor
• Sheetal Sheth, Actress
• Tanveer K. Atwal, Actress
• Ravi Kapoor, Actor
• Deep Katdare, Actor
• Waris Ahluwalia, Actor
• Namrata Singh Gujral, Actress
• Sonal Shah, Actress
• Sunkrish Bala, Actor
• Purva Bedi, Actress
• Devika Parikh, Actress
• Janina Gavankar, Actress
• Sakina Jaffrey, Actress
• Deepti Gupta, Actress
• Serena Varghese, Voice Actress
• Firdous Bamji, Actor
• Samrat Chakrabarti, Actor
• Rory Cochrane, Actor
• Sabu Dastagir, Actor
• Aasif Mandvi, Actor
• Ajay Mehta, TV Actor
• Shelly Malil, Film and TV Actor
• Ajay Naidu, Actor
• Maulik Pancholy, Actor
• Deep Katdare, Actor
• Tiya Sircar, Actress
• Bobby Routh, Actor
• Raja Fenske, Actor
• Omi Vaidya, Actor

British Indian actors in U.S.

• Ben Kingsley, Actor
• Naveen Andrews, Actor (Lost)
• Indira Varma, Actress (Rome)
• Zuleikha Robinson, Actress (The Namesake, Rome)
• Parminder Nagra, Actress (Bend It Like Beckham, ER)
• Rhona Mitra, Actress (Nip/Tuck)
• Dev Patel, Actor (Slumdog Millionaire)
• Reshma Shetty, Actress (Royal Pains)
• Kunal Nayyar, Actor (The Big Bang Theory)
• Gabrielle Anwar, Actress
• Archie Panjabi, Actress (Bend it like Beckham), The Good Wife (TV series)

Adult Film Actress

• Sunny Leone, Pornographic Actress
• Priya Rai, Pornographic Actress

Arts and entertainment

• M. Night Shyamalan, Filmmaker and Actor (Director of Signs and The Sixth Sense)
• Ashok Amritraj, Hollywood producer
• Tarsem Singh, Director
• Mira Nair, Director and Producer
• Jay Chandrasekhar, Director, Actor, Comedian, and Writer
• Harish Saluja, Filmmaker
• Babu Subramaniam, Director
• Ajay Sahgal, Director, Screenwriter and Producer
• Benny Mathews, Film and Music Video Director
• Naren Shankar, TV Writer, Producer and Director, an Executive Producer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Sunil Nayar, TV Writer and Producer, a Producer of CSI: Miami
• Neeraj Khemlani, a producer at the CBS News 60 Minutes.
• Mindy Kaling, Writer, Producer, Actor on The Office.
• Padma Lakshmi, Model, Top Chef Host
• Saira Mohan, Model, was ranked #91 on the Maxim Magazine Hot 100 Women of 2002
• Julie Titus, Model, Contestant of America's Next Top Model
• Sunny Leone, Model, former Penthouse Pet of the Year.
• Pooja Kumar, Model
• Nicole Narain, Model and Actress
• Angela Devi, former Adult Actress
• Govindini Murty, Co-founder of Liberty film festival.
• Manick Sorcar, Animator, Artist, and Producer
• Stephanie Sengupta, Producer and Writer
• Salma Arastu, Artist
• Rina Banerjee, Artist
• Reef Karim, Host
• Tina Sugandh, Entertainer
• Prosenjit Kundu, dancer and choreographer

Fashion designers

• Rachel Roy
• Naeem Khan
• Christine Philip

Comedian

• Aziz Ansari, Comedian
• Hari Kondabolu, Comedian
• Paul Varghese, Comedian from Dallas, Texas appeared on Last Comic Standing
• Dan Nainan, Comedian
• Arj Barker, Comedian
• Adam Mamawala, Comedian
• Azhar Usman, Comedian
• Russel Peters, Comedian

Business and industry

Founder / Entrepreneurs / Venture Capitalists

• Ajit Hutheesing : Founder, Chairman and CEO of International Capital Partners Inc
• Amar Bose : Founder of Bose Corporation
• Sashi Reddi : Founder CEO, AppLabs (World's #1 Software Testing company)
• Arjun Gupta : Silicon Valley venture capitalist
• Ashwin Navin : Co-Founder and President of BitTorrent, Inc.
• Bharat Desai : Founder of Syntel
• Naveen Jain : Founder of InfoSpace and Intelius
• Pradeep Sindhu : Co-Founder and CTO of Juniper Networks
• Preetish Nijhawan : Co-Founder of Akamai Technologies.
• Ram Shriram : Co-Founder of Junglee.com and board member at Google
• Rohini Srihari : Founder of Cymfony and Janya
• Sameer Parekh : Founder of C2Net
• Sanjiv Sidhu : Founder of i2 Technologies
• Somen Banerjee: Founder of Chippendales
• Suhas Patil: Founder of Cirrus Logic
• Vivek Ranadive : Founder, Chairman and CEO of TIBCO Software
• Vinod Gupta : Founder and Chairman of InfoUSA Inc.
• Vinod Khosla : Co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Venture Capitalist

Business Executives

• Abbas Sadriwala : Chairman and CEO of the Fort Lauderdale-based Wireless Logix Group
• Ajay Banga : President and CEO of Mastercard
• Ajay Waghray : Chief Information Officer for Verizon Wireless
• Anshu Jain : Global Head and Managing Director of capital markets at Deutsche Bank.
• Arvind Raghunathan : Managing Director and Head of Global Arbitrage at Deutsche Bank.
• Dinesh Paliwal : Chairman and CEO, Harman International
• Francisco D'Souza : CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions
• Gunjan Bagla : Management Consultant, Managing Director, Amritt; Author Doing Business in 21st Century India.
• Gunjan Sinha : Chairman of MetricStream
• Indra Nooyi : Chairman annd CEO, PepsiCo
• Padmasree Warrior : CTO of Cisco Systems
• Pradeep K Jaisingh : CEO of International Oncology
• Prakash Puram : President and CEO of iXmatch.
• Raj Vaswani : Vice President of Engineering at Epinions.com.
• Rajiv Gupta : General Manager of Hewlett Packard
• Ramani Ayer : Chairman and CEO of The Hartford Financial Services Group
• Ranji H. Nagaswami : Chief Investment Officer for AllianceBernstein Fund Investors
• Rono Dutta : Former President of United Airlines; Chairman of Air Sahara
• Sanjay Jha : Co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices
• Sanjay Kumar : CEO of Computer Associates International
• Sanjiv Ahuja : CEO of Orange Telecommunications
• Shantanu Narayen : CEO of Adobe Systems.
• Srichanda Hinduja : Hinduja Group
• Suresh V. Shenoy: Executive Vice President, Information Management Consultants (IMC), VA, USA and a Philanthropist
• Sivakumar Chinniah: Vice President- Operations of Wockhardt USA
• Umang Gupta: Chairman of the Board and CEO of Keynote Systems, Inc, Ex-Founder and Chairman of Gupta Technologies and a Philanthropist
• Unni Warrier, Co-Founder and Former President, chairman, CEO of CyberMedia
• Vikram Pandit : Chairman and CEO, Citigroup
• Victor Menezes: Chairman of Clearing House Association, former Chairman and CEO of Citibank
• Bobby Mehta : CEO, Transunion Company.
• Vyomesh Joshi : Executive Vice President of Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company.

Former

• Bobby Mehta : Former CEO and Vice Chairman of HSBC North America
• Jay Sidhu : Former Chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bancorp
• Kanwal Rekhi : Former EVP & CTO of Novell
• Lakshmi Narayanan : Vice Chairman and former CEO of Cognizant Corporation.
• Padmasree Warrior : Former CTO of Motorola.
• Rajat Gupta : Former Managing Director of McKinsey & Company
• Rakesh Gangwal : Former CEO and Chairman of US Airways Group

Media

• Fareed Zakaria, columnist for Time Magazine and host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN
• Zain Verjee, CNN anchor
• Ali Velshi, business news anchor for CNN
• Asha Blake, an Emmy award-winning journalist who works for KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.
• Gopal Raju, pioneer of Indian American ethnic media in the United States.

Literature

• Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
• Kiran Desai, winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize
• Anita Desai, novelist, she has been shortlisted for the Booker prize three times, mother of Kiran Desai.
• Dhan Gopal Mukerji, First successful Indian man of letters in the U.S., Winner of Newbery Medal 1928
• Amitav Ghosh, Indo-nostalgic writer and winner of Prix Médicis étranger
• Shauna Singh Baldwin, novelist, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
• Ravi Batra, bestselling author and economist
• Ravi Shankar, poet
• Parag Khanna, author

Politics

Elected Officials

• Bobby Jindal, is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives.
• Nikki Haley, is the 116th and current Governor of South Carolina.
• Mervyn M. Dymally, was the 41st Lieutenant Governor of California (1975–1979) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1981–1993)
• Dalip Singh Saund, was the first Asian and Indian American member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California.
• Kamala Harris, is the 32nd and current Attorney General of California.

Civil Servants

• Rajiv Shah, former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics and current Administrator of USAID.
• Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer of the United States of America.
• Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology Officer of the United States of America.
• Arun Majumdar, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
• Subra Suresh, Director of National Science Foundation
• Neal Katyal, is the Solicitor General of the United States.
• Islam A. Siddiqui, is Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)
• Joy Cherian, first Asian head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
• Gopal Khanna, Chief Information Officer in the state of Minnesota.
• Richard Verma, is the Assistant Secretary for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, at the Department of State
• Arif Alikhan, former Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, former Deputy Mayor for Homeland Security and Public Safety for the City of Los Angeles, former senior adviser to Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales.
• Neel Kashkari, former interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability in the United States Department of the Treasury.
• Sonal Shah, member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project advisory board
• Farah Pandith, is currently the Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the United States Department of State.
• Rashad Hussain, is the U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference
• Preeta D. Bansal, member and past chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and former Solicitor General of New York.
• Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Religion

• Harbhajan Singh Yogi, introduced Kundalini Yoga and Sikhism to the USA and was the spiritual director of the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) Foundation.
• Eboo Patel, member of New Faith Advisory Council
• Ravi Zacharias, Christian evangelist and apologist, Gold Medallion Book Award Winner for the book Can Man Live Without God?
• Muzammil Siddiqi, Ph.D., Chairman, Fiqh Council of North America
• Prem Rawat, also known as Guru Maharaji Ji, head of the Divine Light Mission and later organizations

Sports

• Alexi Grewal, first ever Indian American to win an Olympic medal, Gold Medalist in 1984 Summer Olympics in cycling
• Amjad Khan, Indian born American cricketer
• Mohini Bhardwaj, second Indian American Olympic medalist, 2004 Summer Olympics silver medalist in gymnastics
• Raj Bhavsar, third Indian American Olympic Medalist, 2008 Summer Olympics bronze medalist in the team gymnastics competition.
• Sanjay Beach, was a former NFL wide receiver. He played for the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers.
• Bobby Singh
• Brandon Chillar, NFL player, linebacker for the Green Bay Packers (Only father of Indian descent)
• Manny Malhotra, NHL player, currently in the Vancouver Canucks
• Sunil Gulati, in charge of United States Soccer Federation.
• Sonjay Dutt, TNA Pro Wrestler
• The Great Khali, WWE Pro Wrestler
• Ami Parekh, Skater

Others

• Bhairavi Desai, founding member of the Taxi Workers Alliance in New York
• Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of Global Fund for Women.
• Sabita Singh, first judge of Indian descent in Massachusetts history
• Aman Kapoor, Founder and President of ImmigrationVoice, an advocacy group that united immigrants in USA
• Bhagat Singh Thind, civil rights figure, lecturer, author
• Maya Harris, the Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California and sister of Kamala Harris.
• Mallika Dutt, currently the Executive Director of Breakthrough (human rights)
• Abraham George, Philanthropist Humanitarian, Founder of The George Foundation (TGF)
• Maya Ajmera, Founder and President of The Global Fund for Children
• Anant Raut, Counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee
• Thomas Abraham, Founder President and Chairman Emeritus, Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) as well as the National Federation of Indian American Associations (NFIA)

See also

• List of Indian Doctors in US
• British Indian
• Indian American
• Indo-Canadian
• Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin
• List of Indian Britons
• List of Indo-Canadians
• List of Indians
• List of NRIs