Neomi Jehangir Rao (born March 22, 1973) is an American jurist and former academic and law professor who serves as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, appointed by President Donald Trump.
She previously served in the Trump Administration from 2017 to 2019 as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.Rao was born in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to Indian-born Parsi immigrant parents.
After graduating from Detroit Country Day School, she attended Yale University and then the University of Chicago Law School.
She earned a one-year clerkship with Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S.
Supreme Court, then entered private practice as an associate at the London-based multinational law firm Clifford Chance.
She worked for the U.S.
government during the latter half of George W.
Bush's presidency, then became a professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School.
Her research and teaching focused on constitutional and administrative law, and she founded the school's Center for the Study of the Administrative State.