Commissioner Bio
Arun Seraphin
Appointed by the Honorable Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader
Dr. Arun Seraphin is the Executive Director of the Emerging Technologies Institute at the National Defense Industrial Association. In this role, he leads a nonpartisan institute focused on technologies that are critical to the future of national defense and provides research and analyses to inform the development and integration of emerging technologies and policies to support defense missions.
Between 2014 and 2021, Dr. Seraphin was a Professional Staff Member with the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services. His areas of responsibility included acquisition policy, funding and policies for the Department of Defense’s science and technology programs and information technology systems, technology transition issues, defense laboratories and test ranges, Small Business Innovation Research program, manufacturing programs, test and evaluation programs, and Pentagon management issues. He rejoined the committee staff in 2014, after previously serving there between 2001 and 2010.
From 2010 to 2014, Dr. Seraphin served as the Principal Assistant Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). During this time, he both led (in an Acting capacity) and served as the deputy director of the OSTP National Security and International Affairs division. He was on detail to OSTP from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where he was the Special Assistant for Policy Initiatives to the Director of DARPA. Dr. Seraphin has also worked on the United States House of Representatives Committee on Science’s Subcommittee on Research and at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Dr. Seraphin holds a Bachelor of Arts in American Government and a Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Science from Stony Brook University. He also holds a Doctor of Philosophy in electronic materials and nanotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.