Physician on board to lead New York economic recovery

PULITZER Prize-winning Indian-American physician Sid Mukherjee and compatriot higher education leader Satish Tripathi have been named by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo among members of a commission that will focus on plans to jumpstart the state’s economy badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cuomo announced that the state’s Blue-Ribbon Commission, chaired by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, will also focus on improving telehealth and broadband access using new, innovative technologies.

The 15-member commission will include Mukherjee, Tripathi and other eminent leaders namely Chair of Rockefeller Foundation Richard Parsons, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker and President of Cornell University Martha Pollack and IBM Chair Ginny Rommety.

India-born Mukherjee is a hematologist and oncologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for ‘The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.’

Tripathi is the President of University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Tripathi graduated from Banaras Hindu University and holds three master’s degrees - one in computer science from the University of Toronto and two in statistics from the University of Alberta and Banaras Hindu University.

According to his profile on the university website, Tripathi is a leader in the national higher education community and serves on the board of directors for the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU).

Cuomo had tapped Schmidt to head the commission that will look into how the state’s economy can recover, taking into account lessons learnt from Covid-19 pandemic.