After a virtual meeting with the Chancellor of the University of California, Davis, India’s top diplomat in the US stated that education is an important foundation of the India-US alliance. The Indian Ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, had a good talk with Chancellor Gary May and his staff on the huge potential for knowledge and research partnerships in agriculture, health, digital, and climate change.

After the meeting with Chancellor May, Mr. Sandhu tweeted, “Education is an important pillar of India-US partnership.”

Chancellor May is renowned as a highly involved educational leader with a passion for helping others flourish. In 2015, he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mentoring Students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math from then-President Barack Obama.

He was honoured by the American Association for the Advancement of Science with the prestigious Lifetime Mentor Award in 2021 for exhibiting remarkable leadership in increasing the participation of underrepresented populations in the fields of science and engineering.

The university is in the heart of an area with long-standing ties to the US Sikh population, which includes numerous Punjabi immigrants. California now has half of the Sikh population in the United States.

The university has built an archive of videos, photos, and other documents to preserve the lives and history of Punjabi immigrants and to convey their contributions to California.

The ambassador’s meeting with Chancellor May is part of his ongoing outreach to institutions in the United States.