BOSTON—One American, Stephen Knap, and four Indian Americans—Vinod Dham, Ajay V. Bhatt, Nitin Nohria and Sethuraman Panchanathan—are among this year’s Padma Awards recipients.
Conferred by the government of India Padma Awards are one of the highest civilian Awards of the country. Padma Awards are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in various disciplines / fields of activities, viz.- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc.
‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; ‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any field.
The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year. These Awards are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March / April every year.
For the year 2025, the President has approved conferment of 139 Padma Awards including 1 duo case (in a duo case, the Award is counted as one) as per list below. The list comprises seven Padma Vibhushan, 19 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri Awards. Twnty-three of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of Foreigners / NRI / PIO / OCI and 13 Posthumous awardees.
Here are the American and Indian Americans who will receive the Padma awards:

Vinod Dham
Mr. Dham is Founder and Executive Managing Partner at IndoUS Venture Partners. Popularly acclaimed worldwide as the “Father of Pentium”, for leading Intel’s iconic microprocessor brand from inception to its worldwide success, he has about 50 years of experience in developing semiconductor products, technologies and Venture Capital, according to his profile on Linkedin.
Mr. Dham stays engaged with technology by mentoring start-up entrepreneurs, as an Angel Investor. As a founder of “IndoUS Venture Partners”, an India focused early-stage venture capital fund, and prior to that a Cross border India -US Incubator, Newspath Ventures, Mr. Dham is one of the handful of pioneers in early 2000s, who brought Venture Capital and Start-up eco-system to India, setting the foundation for what has become the third largest start-up and venture community in the world.
Earlier, he was CEO of Silicon Spice, where he led the design of chip for transmission of voice over the internet. Silicon Spice was acquired by Broadcom for $1.2 billion, a rare unicorn success for a chip start-up. Prior to that Vin was COO at NexGen, a microprocessor design start-up, which was acquired by AMD for $800m.

Ajay Bhatt
Mr. Bhatt is a recognized technologist and a thought leader in platform and silicon level architecture in the computer industry for over 38 years. He has demonstrated an unprecedented level of innovation in system architecture and systems engineering (spanning software, platforms, and silicon) and the ability to develop and foster strong relationships with technical leaders throughout the computer industry.
He possesses significant hands on technical knowledge and industry experiences from multiple I/O, chipsets, software and platform architectures, understanding technical details without losing sight of its global implications. Mr. Bhatt has co-invented and spearheaded a number of notable technologies adopted by today’s global industry.
To date, he has been granted 132+ US and international patents. Among his many recognitions, some of the most noteworthy include The Light of India Award 2012 for his contributions in advancement of science and technology, The Asian Award 2013 for outstanding achievement in Science and technology and EU Inventor award 2013 for his contributions to the development of USB.

Nitin Nohria
Mr. Nohria is the former dean of the Harvard Business School. He has authored or co-authored 17 books and was the tenth dean of Harvard Business School. He had previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior unit.
As Dean, building on input from faculty, students, staff, and alumni, Mr. Nohria had identified five priorities for Harvard Business School: innovation in the school’s educational programs; intellectual ambition that advances ideas with impact in practice; continued internationalization, through building a global intellectual footprint; creating a culture of inclusion, where every member of the community can do their best work in support of the school’s mission; and fostering a culture of integration within HBS and across Harvard University.
A trained chemical engineer with a Ph.D. from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Nohria vigorously advocated for closer collaboration with the tech and scientific communities, both on and off campus. The i-lab and Harvard Business School Online successfully launched on his watch, and Nohria chaired the development of the Enterprise Research Campus project in Allston. Major capital projects, including Klarman Hall, a new, state-of-the-art auditorium, and the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center and Tata Hall, which serve the School’s residential executive education programs, all were commissioned and opened.

Sethuraman Panchanathan
Mr. Panchanathan is a computer scientist and engineer and the 15th director of the U.S. National Science Foundation. He was nominated to this position by the president of the United States in 2019 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on June 18, 2020. NSF is a $9.06 billion independent federal agency and the only government agency charged with advancing all fields of scientific discovery, technological innovation and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
Mr. Panchanathan is a leader in science, engineering and education with more than three decades of experience. He has a distinguished career in both higher education and government, where he has designed and built knowledge enterprises that advance research innovation, strategic partnerships, entrepreneurship, global development and economic growth.
As director, Panchanathan maintains leadership roles on several key interagency councils and committees, including serving as co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a member of the White House CHIPS Implementation Steering Council and the White House Gender Policy Council. He is also chair of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee and co-vice chair of the Council for Inclusive Innovation.
Panchanathan previously served as the executive vice president of the Arizona State University (ASU) Knowledge Enterprise, where he was also chief research and innovation officer. He was also the founder and director of the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing at ASU. Under his leadership, the university increased research performance fivefold, earning recognition as the fastest growing and most innovative research university in the U.S.

Stephen Knap
Mr. Knap has dedicated himself to spreading the deepest and most practical levels of spiritual knowledge about the soul–our real identity. It is his strongest realization that our existence on this earthly plane becomes much easier and more vibrant the more we expand our spiritual awareness to perceive the higher dimensions and purpose of things around us.
He grew up in a Christian family, during which time he seriously studied the Bible to understand its teachings. In his late teenage years, however, he sought answers to questions not easily explained in Christian theology. So, he began to search through other religions and philosophies from around the world and started to find the answers for which he was looking. He also studied a variety of occult sciences, ancient mythology, mysticism, yoga, and the spiritual teachings of the East.
Finally, after his first reading of the Bhagavad-gita, the classic summary of Vedic philosophy known as The Song of God, he felt he had found the last piece of the puzzle he had been putting together through all of his research. This increased his understanding of everything else he had been studying. Therefore, he continued to research all of the major Vedic texts of India to gain a better understanding of the Vedic science, until he became a full-fledged follower and practitioner of Sanatana-dharma. Now he also tirelessly works to protect, preserve and promote the deep spiritual knowledge of Vedic philosophy and its traditions. Since he started writing in 1986 to share the Vedic spirituality with others, he has published over 50 books and numerous articles.