Two Indian Americans named among Oakland County’s Elite 40 Under 40 in Michigan

- ADVERTISEMENT -

NEW YORK – Two Indian Americans have been named among Oakland County’s Elite 40 Under 40: Shantha Kumari Rajendran, 36, and Adi Sathi, 27, according to a Farmington Voice report.

Rajendran is a Staff Engineer-Systems Lead for Panasonic Automotive and has been in the automotive industry for 15 years as an Embedded Systems Engineer.

She specializes in Human Machine Interface and User Experience and has filed 10 automotive patents, two of which were recently approved by USPTO.

She has also submitted several technical papers to the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) where she is an active volunteer and the Society for Information Displays (SID) conferences.

Rajendran holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering, a master’s in management and is also a Stanford Certified Project Manager, and she is currently pursuing her second master’s degree at Harvard University.

“Shantha was the first woman in her family to finish school, university, become an engineer, work in the USA, get a masters degree with honors. She has great balance between her career and family,” her husband Ganapathy Lakshmanaperumal wrote to Farmington Voice.

According to Lakshmanaperumal, Rajendran aspires to become a CEO someday.

“She is a great example of a first time immigrant STEM Woman who works hard to reach her goal,” he said.

Sathi is the director of Asian Pacific American Engagement and was also the Vice Chair of the Michigan Republican Party in 2015 as well as the Deputy Executive Director of the Republican Hindu Coalition in Washington, D.C., according to apaics.org.

According to apaics.org, as a student, Sathi was elected to serve as the Executive Director of the Association of Big Ten Students, an organization that consists of the 14 Big Ten schools from 11 different states and represents over 540,000 students, for which he was invited to the 2013 White House Youth Summit and recognized by Red Alert Politics on their 2014 ’30 Under 30′ list.

He was also recognized on Newsmax’s list of 30 Most Influential Republicans 30 and Under in January 2016 for his role in the Michigan Republican Party, according to apaics.org.

Sathi is a 2016 Fellow in the Michigan Political Leadership Program through Michigan State University’s Institute of Public Policy and Social Research; he also received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Michigan.

The Oakland County Executive’s Elite 40 Under 40 program is in its seventh year and is an initiative of County Executive L. Brooks Patterson that “recognizes and spotlights dynamic leaders under the age of 40 who are making a difference in Oakland County.”