Ajit Pai          

Ajit Varadaraj Pai (born January 10, 1973) is an American lawyer who served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2017 to 2021. He became a partner at the private-equity firm Searchlight Capital in April 2021. He became the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of CTIA on April 1, 2025.

The son of Indian immigrants to the United States, Pai grew up in Parsons, Kansas. He is a graduate of both Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. He worked as a lawyer in various offices of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, with a two-year stint as an in-house lawyer for Verizon Communications. He joined the FCC as a lawyer in its Office of General Counsel in 2007. He was nominated to be a commissioner in 2011 by President Barack Obama, who followed tradition in preserving balance on the commission by accepting the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate on May 7, 2012, and was sworn in on May 14, 2012, for a five-year term.

In January 2017, newly inaugurated president Donald Trump designated Pai as FCC chairman. He is the first Indian American to hold the office. In March 2017, Trump announced that he would renominate Pai to serve another five-year term (remaining Chairman of the FCC). Pai was confirmed by the U.S. Senate for an additional five-year term on October 2, 2017. Pai is a proponent of repealing net neutrality in the United States and, on December 14, 2017, voted with the majority of the FCC to reverse the decision to regulate the internet under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Pai resigned on January 20, 2021, the day of Joe Biden's inauguration as President of the United States.

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla (17 March 1962 – 1 February 2003) was an American astronaut and engineer, who was the first woman of Indian origin to go to space. She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator.

Her second flight was on STS-107, the final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. Chawla was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and several streets, universities, and institutions have been named in her honor. She is regarded as a national hero in India.

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17 March 1962, in Karnal of present-day Haryana, India, but her date of birth was later falsified by her family to 1 July 1961, to allow her to become eligible for the matriculation exam. As a child, she was fascinated by aeroplanes and flying. She went to local flying clubs and watched planes with her father. After getting a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, India, she moved to the United States in 1982 and obtained a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984. Chawla went on to earn a second Masters in 1986 and a PhD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado Boulder.