Computer scientist and engineer Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan has been named the recipient of the 2026 Arthur M. Bueche Award, becoming the first Indian American to receive the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE) honor in its more than four-decade history.
The Academy is honoring Panchanathan “for leadership in promoting fundamental science, technology, and policy that advances translational research and expands opportunities nationwide.” He will receive the award on Oct. 4 at the NAE Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
The recognition is particularly significant as the Bueche Award is not centered on a single scientific discovery or technological invention. Established in 1983, it recognizes an engineer’s contributions to U.S. science and technology policy, technological development, and efforts to strengthen relationships among industry, government and universities.
Those criteria closely mirror a career that has taken him from scientific research and university leadership to the highest levels of American science policy.
Panchanathan served as the 15th director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) from June 2020 to April 2025, after being nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019 and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in June 2020. During his tenure, NSF established the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), its first new directorate in more than 30 years.
TIP was designed to help move discoveries beyond the laboratory by accelerating use-inspired and translational research, fostering regional innovation ecosystems and strengthening the nation’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce. Under Panchanathan, NSF also advanced investments and partnerships in areas including artificial intelligence, quantum science, semiconductors and other emerging technologies.
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That emphasis on connecting fundamental research with real-world impact is at the heart of the Bueche Award.
“Panch is one of the most remarkable systems thinkers we have in this country,” Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow said of Panchanathan in a news release, adding that the award recognizes his ability to address complex problems at a national scale.
Panchanathan’s path to the upper reaches of American science began thousands of miles away.
Growing up in Chennai, India, he was eight years old when his father took him to the American Center in 1969 to see lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo 11 astronauts. Panchanathan has recalled being fascinated less by the rocks themselves than by the human ingenuity and scientific achievement required to bring them back from the Moon.
He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Madras in 1981, a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru in 1984, and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1986. He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Ottawa in 1989.
As a researcher, Panchanathan has worked in human-centered multimedia computing, machine learning and technologies designed to improve the lives of people with disabilities. He founded ASU’s Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing, which has developed assistive technologies, and has published more than 485 scholarly papers. He has also mentored more than 150 graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, research engineers and scientists.
But it was his ability to build institutions and connect research, technology and public policy that increasingly defined his career.
Before leading NSF, Panchanathan spent more than two decades at ASU, including serving as executive vice president of its Knowledge Enterprise and chief research and innovation officer. He has since returned to ASU as Professor of Technology and Innovation, with current work spanning artificial intelligence, quantum computing and the future of higher education. He is also the first person from Arizona to receive the Bueche Award.
Panchanathan’s career also represents a notable bridge between the scientific establishments of the United States and India.
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During his NSF tenure, he championed bilateral research collaborations with India, including partnerships with the Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. NSF-backed collaborations connected American and Indian researchers in areas such as artificial intelligence, data science, advanced wireless technologies and other emerging fields.
In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Panchanathan to the U.S. National Science Board, making him the first Indian American to serve on the body which helps shape national science and engineering policy.
His contributions have now been recognized by both countries he has served through science.
In 2025, the Government of India honored Panchanathan with the Padma Shri, one of the country’s highest civilian awards, for his contributions to science and engineering. The official citation highlighted a career spanning research, higher education, innovation and government leadership, as well as his work advancing technologies to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities.
A year later, the Arthur M. Bueche Award highlights another dimension of that career: his role in helping shape the institutions and partnerships through which scientific ideas become technologies, industries and opportunities.
“I’m honored and humbled by this recognition,” Panchanathan said in an ASU news release. “Awards like this are never only about the individual. They are about the scores of people that have contributed to the outcomes recognized.”
From an eight-year-old boy in Chennai marveling at the scientific achievement behind Apollo 11 to leading one of America’s premier scientific agencies, Panchanathan’s career has been built around a recurring idea: scientific discovery reaches its greatest potential when institutions, people and partnerships are created to carry it forward.
The Arthur M. Bueche Award recognizes precisely that kind of impact.