U.S. President Joe Biden recently nominated Kathi Vidal, ‘90, as the new director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Vidal graduated from Binghamton University with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and went on to receive a master’s degree in the same field from Syracuse University in 1992. She also holds a Juris Doctor degree (J.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania.

Vidal expressed her gratitude for the nomination in a post on her LinkedIn page.

“I am honored and humbled to be nominated by President Biden to serve as our country’s Under Secretary [of Commerce] for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at the Department of Commerce,” Vidal wrote. “I look forward to being part of the team that helps move our country forward.”

Vidal’s accomplishments and accolades include serving as a managing partner, executive committee member and patent litigator at Winston & Strawn LLP, being “one of four law firm advisory board members for ChIPs, a nonprofit organization committed to advancing women at the intersection of law, technology and regulatory policy” and being “nationally recognized for leading high-profile patent disputes,” according to a White House briefing.

Steve Seepersaud, the advancement communications manager of the BU division of communications and marketing, wrote that BU is proud to hold up Kathi Vidal as a notable alumna.

“We were very happy to hear [Vidal] was nominated to lead the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,” Seepersaud wrote in an email. “It’s exciting to envision a [BU] graduate in such a prominent position to protect intellectual property. We are proud of her accomplishments and have tremendous pride in the many [BU] alumni who have built public service careers on the federal, state and local levels.”

Other alumni who have made contributions in the public service field are Hakeem Jeffries, ‘92, who was the first BU alumnus to be elected to the U.S. Congress, and Shareema Abel, ‘96, who was appointed as special counsel to the commissioner for ethics, risk and compliance for homes and community renewal by former New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Vidal’s accomplishments have also impressed BU students like Julia Rakus, a senior double-majoring in theatre and English in an accelerated public administration master’s program.

“It’s incredible to see fellow Bearcats going on to do great things,” Rakus said. “It’s especially great to see [Vidal] doing great things for the country as a whole.”

Malachi Blenman, a senior majoring in computer engineering in the accelerated MBA program, wrote that Vidal’s success will inspire the next generation of Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science graduates.

“Seeing the vastly different paths that one could take after graduating with an engineering degree gives me the motivation to explore different passions that I can apply my education to,” Blenman wrote in an email. “In our curriculum, we learn all different skills from technical to interpersonal life skills and I sometimes feel like, in the traditional workforce of many engineers, a plethora of those skills aren’t used to the caliber that they should. Vidal’s story is one for the books … I’m pleased to see our [alumna] breaking glass ceilings in all different sectors of the country, and I hope her success inspires kids of many different [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)] disciplines to explore the applications of education to unconventional paths of work.”