Arati Prabhakar is a woman of Indian origin who was raised in Lubboc, Texas. She has completed her Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University in 1979. She obtained her Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Caltech (California Institute of Technology) in 1980. She also did her PhD in applied physics from Caltech in 1984. She went on to become the first woman to achieve a PhD in applied Physics from Caltech.

After completing her PhD, she further pursued her congressional fellowship with the Office of Technology Assessment from 1984 to 1986. She subsequently started working at DARPA from 1986 to 1993 as a program manager. She went on to become the founding director of DARPA’S Microelectronics Technology Office.

Prabhakar was appointed as the head of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 1993 to 1997 by President Bill Clinton. From NIST she went on to become the Chief Technology Officer and the Senior Vice-President of Raychem from 1997 to 1998. She later became the president of Interval Research from 1998 to 2000.

She joined US Venture Partners from 2001 to 2011. Her focus, while she served there was on green technology and information technology start-ups. She was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioural Sciences (CASBS).

Prabhakar joined Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a program manager. On July 30, 2012, she was promoted as the head of the DARPA’s Microelectronics Technology Office.

During her time at DARPA she introduced and directed programs in advanced semiconductor technology and led demonstration projects to insert new semiconductor technologies into military systems.

Besides her accolades and achievements she also went on to start a non-profit organisation, Actuate in 2019. It was an open innovation for society’s challenges in 2019.