US S
PECIAL
/W
ASHINGTON
S
PEAKING
Talented Sohini Chatterjee joins Obama administration
Meet Sohini
AZIZ HANIFFA
Yet another young and talented Indian American has made i
t
o a senior position in the Obama administration.
Sohini Chatterjee was appointed a
senior adviser in the Office of Donor
Engagement in the United States
Agency for International
Development’s newly created Policy
Planning Bureau.
This new bureau will consolidate
policy-planning functions within
USAID and evaluate what natural dis-
asters, civil unrests or refugee crises
are most urgently in need of the
agency’s resources.
Dr Raj Shah heads USAID, under
the purview of the Department of
State. Shah, the highest-ranking
Indian American in the Obama
administration, will work closely with
Chatterjee and another Indian
American, Nisha Desai Biswal. Obama
recently appointed Biswal as assistant
administrator for Asia in the Agency.
An elated Chatterjee told
India
Abroad
: “I am deeply committed to
working in development and I look
forward to serving the President and
his staff with fortitude and humility. I
am honored to be in the company of
other Indian-American appointees
and in particular to be working with
Dr Rajiv Shah.”
She said she believed her “diverse
experience in international legal mat-
ters and development will provide an
innovative perspective. I am grateful
for the many months I spent in India,
especially in the rural areas, because
they have shaped me both as a person
and as a professional.”
She said she “approached this posi-
tion with empathy and an understand-
ing for the priorities of those living in
poverty, and with a strategic and legal
eye towards creating and maintaining
sustainable development.”
She said she remained extremely
close to Kolkata and her relatives in
West Bengal and spoke of the many
fulfilling months she spent in 1996
working with Mother Teresa there. She
taught English and math to street chil-
dren and volunteered towards fighting
a tuberculosis war at a Kolkata
orphanage at Kalighat’s Home for the
Dying and Destitute.
Sohini Chatterjee
; Born in Rourkela, Orissa, and raised in
Cary, North Carolina.
; Worked at the World Bank's
Development Economics Prospect Group
on issues of migration and remittances.
; For five years, was an associate in the
Washington, DC office of top law firm
Steptoe & Johhson LLP, where she was a
member of the Regulatory & Industry
Affairs Department and the International
Department.
; Worked on European Union regulatory
and tax matters for the global firm of
Linklaters LLP in their office in Brussels,
Belgium.
; Has also provided pro bono representa-
tion to individuals in the areas of family
law, domestic violence law, children's law,
and human rights law, and for years
served as a volunteer attorney in family
law for the Legal Aid Society of
Washington, DC, a non-profit organizing
serving the indigent and the poorest of the
poor in DC.
; Received her BA in literature from
Columbia University; MA in international
relations and international economics
from The John Hopkins University and
Juris Doctor from Duke University School
of Law.
; Worked for the Department of State's
Mission to the United Nations and for
The Protection Project, a legal human
rights research institute, where she
focused on the issues of trafficking and
child slavery in South America and Africa.
Meanwhile, a desi trend in DC think tanks
Shikha Bhatnagar
AZIZ HANIFFA
Shikha Bhatnagar’s recent appointment as associate direc- tor, South Asia Center, Atlantic Council, is yet another example of a growing trend of second-
generation Indian Americans making
inroads into leading Washington, DC
think tanks.
First there was Parag Khanna, who
joined the New America Foundation as
a senior research fellow of the America
Strategy Program and director of the
Global Governance Initiative. Neera
Tanden, an alumna of the Center for
American Progress, followed, and after
a stint as a senior adviser in the Obama
administration returned to CAP as the
chief operating officer.
Bhatnagar, 34, comes to the Atlantic
Council after heading the Boston office
of the Akshaya Patra Foundation. From
April 2008 to the end 2009 she was
executive director of Teach for India —
an initiative to get middle-class Indians
to give the indigent the gift of education
— in Pune.
Teach for India, modeled after Teach
for America, selects outstanding young
leaders around the country, and recruits
them to serve as teachers in low-
resourced schools, with the idea of
developing a community of effective
alumni, who continue to serve as advo-
cates of educational equity throughout
their careers.
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