Vasundara Venkatraman Varadan is a professor emeritus at University of Arkansas and a Fellow of SPIE.
She moved to Ohio State University in 1977 where she was an associate professor in wave physics and composite materials.
She served on the faculty at Pennsylvania State University for over twenty years, working as co-director of the Centre for Electronic Engineering.
In 2002 Varadan was made National Science Foundation Division Director of Electrical & Communications Systems.
She created the Ms. Wiz program, which was one of the first interventions that attracted young girls to science and engineering careers.