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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline February 05, 2021 | The Indian Eye 36

of US President Joe Biden. Malaria Coordinator to lead the US president’s Malaria Initiative.”
A statement issued by NASA stated that Lal brings extensive ex- Panjabi’s grandparents were refugees from Sindh Province fol-
perience in engineering and space technology, serving as a member lowing the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947 and resettled in
of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses Science Mumbai and Indore, India. A generation later, Panjabi’s parents mi-
and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) from 2005 to 2020. grated to West Africa, where Panjabi was born in Liberia. After the
The statement further elaborated that she is an active member civil war broke in Liberia, Panjabi who was 9-years-old then along
of the space technology and policy community, having chaired, co- with his family came to the United States.
chaired, or served on five high-impact National Academy of Science In a series of tweets, Panjabi said: “My family and I arrived in
committees. She served two consecutive terms on the National Oce- America 30 years ago after fleeing civil war in Liberia. A communi-
anic and Atmospheric Administration Federal Advisory Commit- ty of Americans rallied around my family to help us build back our
tee on Commercial Remote Sensing. Lal was an External Council lives. It’s an honor to serve the country that helped build back my
member of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program and own life as part of the Biden-Harris Administration.”
the Technology, Innovation, and Engineering Advisory Committee Panjabi explained that the mission is personal for him. He said:
of the NASA Advisory Council. “My grandparents and parents were infected with malaria while liv-
Lal co-founded and is co-chair of the policy track of the American ing in India. As a child in Liberia, I fell sick with malaria, and as
Nuclear Society’s annual conference on Nuclear and Emerging Tech- a doctor serving in Africa, I have seen this disease take too many
nologies in Space (NETS). She was also nominated and selected to be a lives.” He added he has witnessed how the Malaria Initiative and
Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. its partners have responded with resolve in the countries where it
operates and watched the relief on the parents’ faces whose children
dr raJ panJaBi survived malaria because they were treated with medicines and by

Biden names doctor to lead health workers backed by its support.
Panjabi said he will work to eliminate malaria once and for all
alongside the staff of the President’s Malaria Initiative, its partners
his malaria initiative the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
and the Center for Disease Control.
US President Joe Biden appointed Indian-origin Dr Raj Panja- According to Panjabi’s LinkedIn account, he returned to Liberia
bi to lead his Malaria Initiative, which is mainly in Asian and Afri- as a medical student and in 2007, co-founded Last Mile Health. He
can countries. Panjabi posted on Twitter that he is grateful for this also worked as an assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard
chance. He tweeted: “After being sworn in this morning, I’m honored Medical School, an associate physician at the Brigham and Wom-
to share that I’ve been appointed by” Joe Biden as the “President’s en’s Hospital, and is the CEO and co-founder of Last Mile Health.

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