Luxme Hariharan, Payal Patel and Anil Yallapragada.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Three Indian Americans have been named as finalists for the White House Fellows program, the impetus of which President Lyndon B. Johnson had said was “to give the Fellows first hand, high-level experience with the workings of the federal government and to increase their sense of participation in national affairs” when he established the program in 1964.
Luxme Hariharan, Payal Patel, and Anil Yallapragada are all shortlisted for the White House Fellows post, during which the recipient of the position spends a year working as full-time, paid assistants to senior White House staff, the vice president, cabinet secretaries, and other high-ranking government officials.
President Johnson hoped outgoing Fellows would “repay the privilege” by “continuing to work as private citizens on their public agendas” and contributing to the nation as its future leaders.
According to the Press Trust of India, Luxme Hariharan is a pediatric cataract, glaucoma, cornea and international health fellow, at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, University of Southern California Eye Institute. Payal Patel is infectious diseases fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, in Houston, while Anil Yallapragada is medical director of the South Carolina Stroke Institute, Grand Strand Medical Centre.
The national finalists, selected through a highly competitive selection process, will be evaluated by the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships in Washington from June 11 to 14, according to a White House release.
The selection process is highly competitive, according to the White House’s website, since there can be as many as 1,000 applicants for only 11 to 19 fellowships. The average age of a Fellow is 32.2 years old.
“There are over 700 White House Fellow alumni,” reported PTI, “a distinguished group that includes former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Doctor Sanjay Gupta, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.”