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Biden Administration International Affairs Personnel Tracker
Kei Koizumi
Chief of Staff of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Kei Koizumi previously served on the Technology, Innovation & Government Reform Policy Working Group of the Obama-Biden Presidential transition team and was described as “one of the nation’s leading experts on the federal science budget.” Following the transition, he served in the Obama Administration for eight years as the Assistant Director for Federal R&D and Senior Advisor to the Director of the National Science and Technology Council in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) where he was “responsible for leading OSTP engagement on the U.S. Federal R&D budgets, appropriations, and policies and for S&T policy coordination through the National Science and Technology Council.”
In 2017, Koizumi returned as a senior advisor and fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). While there, he established the AAAS Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues and served as the Director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. Since early 2021, Koizumi has been Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
This position does not require Senate confirmation. Koizumi’s position and appointment was announced by the Biden Administration on January 15, 2021.
On China
The few China-related opinions Koizumi has publicly expressed on China primarily relate to foreign research in American universities. In January 2020, Koizumi stated: “The U.S.-China relationship is the most important international scientific collaborative relationship we have right now,” emphasizing it is better “to think of China as a collaborator than as an adversary.” On investigations into foreign research interference, Koizumi has spoken out about the importance of “high-skilled immigration and student immigration that are so vital to the health of U.S. research institutions.”
According to a report by Nature in July 2020, Koizumi “expects U.S.-China partnerships to become a smaller percentage of the United States’ total international collaborations, with drops in research that leads to industrial applications, including medicine, AI and clean energy.” He “says some US scientists now think that collaborating with researchers in China isn’t worth the risk of being investigated, and that some Chinese scientists probably feel the same.” Around the same time, Koizumi commented on China’s Strong Base Plan, explaining that if “successful, then it could be a net positive for China because many students who, interested in STEM, would have gone to US schools will increasingly go to Chinese schools because of US restrictive policies.”
In a separate interview in November 2020, Koizumi commented that, while Trump’s aggression resulted in “a needed re-examination of the fundamental openness of the US science system,” “Chinese students and researchers still want to go to the US but they recognise it’s a more hostile place for them now.”
Notably, Koizumi is also seen as an important representative of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in the U.S. On May 10, 2021, Koizumi was an panelist during the NASA-sponsored event “AAPI (Asian-American and Pacific Islanders) Voices Rising”; an event on NASA Television that celebrates the AAPI community in America and in NASA itself. The event was put on as part of AAPI Heritage Month.
Notable Speeches, Testimony & Commentary
- On September 9, 2021, Koizumi participated in a virtual event hosted by the Duke University School of Law that looked into the The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act.
- Commenting on the Biden Administration’s newly launched Climate Innovation Working Group on February 15, 2021: “The Office of Science and Technology Policy is ready to help turbocharge climate-related innovation, and we look forward to engaging with scientists, engineers, students, and innovators all across America to build a future in which not only jobs and economic benefits but also opportunities to participate in climate innovation are shared equitably by all Americans.”
- In a short interview in October 2020 with his alma mater, Koizumi said “I still use what I first learned at GWU every week. Sometimes, it’s understanding other nations’ systems, histories, and alliances to figure out why policies work well in some nations but not in others….And sometimes, it’s understanding how global scientific, security, diplomacy, and commercial networks have evolved over time to help me make sense of the changes happening in the present day.
Media Commentary & Public Perceptions
Mr. Koizumi’s name and achievements are commonly included in mass announcements about Biden Administration science and technology personnel.
- “The Fascinating Tech People on the Biden + Harris Transition Team,” Medium, November 17, 2020
Kei has focused on R&D funding policy, which is likely the superpower he’s bringing to this transition team.
- “Science Takes Center Stage in the Biden Administration,” Genengnews, January 21, 2021
Page Last Updated: February 10, 2022
*None of the personnel in this tracker are associated with the Institute for China-America Studies. All images used on this page are sourced from the official Biden-Harris transition website buildbackbetter.gov or the public domain.*
