Dr. Venkat Rao is a nationally recognized biomedical subject matter expert with specialized research and training experience in toxicology, biochemical pharmacology, health technology applications, infectious agent diagnostics, chemical-biological medical countermeasures development R&D, and chemical-biological threat assessments.  He has an over 25-year career in national security and homeland security programs supporting DoD, CDC, and the DHS entities.

He was formerly the Program Director for Health Strategies at Parsons Federal Business Unit, leading the health and biomedical technology applications in disease detection, smart city initiative, and chemical-biological threat detection systems. In 2017, he was elected by the Parsons Executive Council as a Board member of the Fellows program and inducted as a Parsons Fellow.  Prior to joining Parsons, Dr. Rao was the Chief Scientist and Senior Fellow of the CSC Defense Group, where he had technical oversight on $300M annual revenue generating division covering defense and homeland security programs and subject.  He was elected Senior Fellow of the CSC Defense Group (2008-2013) and led public health and chemical-biological sciences subject matter expert of the CSC Leading Edge Forum.

Dr. Rao was formerly a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences under the Young Investigators Program; Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences; and recipient of the AAAS Robert C. Barnard Environmental Scholar Award, and recipient of the International graduate scholarship of the Rotary International Foundation.  He has published over 100 publications as papers in peer-review journals, book chapters, meetings proceedings and technical reports.  Dr. Rao is invited to serve on expert panels, invited speaker, by the federal government agencies, industry groups, academic and professional organizations.

 Dr. Rao holds a PhD in Biochemistry and two master’s degree, one in Pharmacology and the other in Toxicology.  He is Board certified by the American Board of Toxicology.  He received the Gold Medal of the Indian Institute of Science adjudged as the best PhD thesis of the graduating class.  He held a Rockefeller University postdoctoral fellowship and did postdoctoral work at George Washington University Medical Center researching on chemical-biological interactions in lung cancer. Dr.  Rao has served as expert witness and has offered testimony to courts and technical commissions on the effects of toxins, carcinogens, drugs, and chemicals on human health.  As an expert toxicologist, he has served on several panels conveyed by the US Centers for Disease Control, Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, US Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Department of Energy and has offered advice and technical testimonials to Hospitals, Public Health Laboratories, Insurance Companies and Law firms.