January 6, 2023 – Aruna Katragadda Miller (1964 – ) is the first South Asian woman elected and sworn in as a state lieutenant governor in the United States.
Born in Hyderabad, India, to a Hindu family, Aruna Miller comes to the United States with her immigrant family at the age of seven. Following in the footsteps of her mechanical engineer father, she attends the Missouri University of Science and Technology and becomes a civil engineer.
After serving as a transportation engineer in several states, she moves to Montgomery County, Maryland, in 1990 and works on programs that allow greater access and safer routes to schools and other public buildings.
Miller works as a volunteer to get Democratic candidates elected. She is elected herself to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2010 and retires from Montgomery County Government in 2015 to devote full time to her political career.
When she runs for U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District in 2018, Miller is a popular candidate but is defeated in the Democratic Primary by David Trone.
She leaves her legislative career in 2019 to become the new executive director of Indian American Impact, an organization designed to build the power and influence of Indian American communities across America. Miller is tapped by Wes Moore to run on his gubernatorial team as Lt. Governor in November, 2021. Elected with Moore in November, 2022, as a practicing Hindu, she takes her oath of office on a copy of the Bhagavad Gita.
