Eminent Indian American scientist, Arunava Majumdar, has resigned after the US Senate did not confirm President Barack Obama's proposal to elevate him as Under Secretary at the Department of Energy.

President Barack Obama withdrew Majumdar's nomination, which was sent to the Senate on Nov 30 last year, a brief White House announcement said.

Head of the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), Majumdar would leave the position on June 9, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu wrote in his e-mail early this month.

"Arun has recruited some of the most talented professionals across the country to join the ranks at ARPA-E and create programs that have the potential of changing the entire energy landscape."

Majumdar came to Washington from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

"Arun's departure is a kick in the stomach," Barton Gordon, a former member of the US House of Representatives who spearheaded the creation of ARPA-E in 2007, was quoted as saying.

Gordon, now a lobbyist with K&L Gates in Washington, DC, said Majumdar is a "good scientist and a good organizer who created a good bipartisan following [in Congress] for ARPA-E. I don't think people realised what a good politician he is. He's a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy."

Modelled after the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E is designed to funnel money quickly to high-risk, "transformational" efforts to develop new energy technologies.

David Sandalow, assistant secretary of energy for policy and international affairs, will become undersecretary.

Majumdar became the first Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), the country's only agency devoted to transformational energy research and development, in October 2009.