Voices from DARPA

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Whitney Mason, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Microsystems Technology Office, explains how she became smitten with the science and technology of imaging. Even as a child, Mason was curious about the world, wondering about everything, she says, from why the sky is blue to what makes concrete hard. But what ended up inspiring her most and cementing in her professional trajectory was the fantastic ways that animals see, including the ability to see in the night using infrared light. “A soldier needs to see at night,” Mason says. “Or see through dust. Or find homemade explosives. Or find things really far away. Or track things.” That list of warfighters’ sensory needs explains a lot about the bold portfolio of projects Mason oversees at DARPA. She is out to provide warfighters with some of the smartest, most discerning, most versatile imaging sensors ever devised. As she explains in the podcast, this will require designing into the sensors brain-like functions of identifying what really requires attention in a complex scene of mostly benign features, preprocessing huge amounts of data the ways eyes do before sending information brainward via the optic nerves, and purging raw sensor data of extraneous portions that can be confusing to both people and computers. One of her programs, which aims to shrink otherwise unwieldly infrared imaging systems into much smaller and lighter packages, challenges materials researchers with a task equivalent to reforming a brittle ceramic dinner plate into the shape of cup. That’s just a taste of the tough problems her projects' research teams are working on. Challenging as her job might be, Mason seems to be just where she wants to be. “I have had very fun jobs,” Mason says, “but this is the funnest.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Bruce Draper, a program manager since 2019 in the agency’s Information Innovation Office, explains how his fascination with the ways people reason, think, and believe what they believe steered him into a lifelong embrace of computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) research. At DARPA, Draper—who says he welcomes working at a place where an academic scientist like himself can influence the direction of entire fields of research—oversees a portfolio of programs that collectively are about making artificial intelligence learn faster, less prone to mistakes and flawed inferences, and less vulnerable to misuse and deception. One of his programs aims to imbue computers with nonverbal communication abilities so that AIs collaborating with people can integrate a human being’s facial and gestural cues with written and oral ones. Another program seeks to make machine-learning algorithms into quicker studies that require simpler data sets to learn how to identify objects, actions, and other categories of phenomena. Two of Draper’s programs fall into the category of “adversarial AI,” in which, for example, those with ill intent might try to deceive an AI with “poisoned data” that could lead to inappropriate inferences and actions. Yet another program, a new one, aims to develop AIs that can serve as competent guides for people in the midst of tasks, say, fixing the brakes on a military aircraft or preparing tiramisu for a dinner party. “It’s sort of the do-it-yourself revolution on steroids,” says Draper. AI holds exciting possibilities, he adds, but it will take close attention to privacy concerns, built-in biases, and other hidden perils for AI to become the technology we want it to be for us all.

Welcome to Sounds of Innovation, an intermittent feature of our Voices from DARPA podcast. Rather than hearing the voices of program managers, which is normally what you get in a Voices from DARPA podcast, in each Sounds of Innovation episode, you will hear some of the soundscapes of research and development … and learn just a little bit about the world-changing capabilities those sounds could lead to. See if you can guess how the sounds were produced before our podcast host reveals their origin.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Seth Cohen, a program manager since 2019 in the agency’s Biological Technologies Office, takes listeners on a scientific journey that began with childhood fossil-hunting forays with his biology-teacher dad and is unfolding now in his oversight of three ambitious programs that center on some of humanity’s most pressing needs. Two of these take on the relentlessly evolving public-health threats that viral and bacterial pathogens pose. Another program is immersed in the challenge of the increasing scarcity of potable water. If Seth has it his way, these programs will deliver 1) a new strategy for fighting viral infections; 2) a powerful anti-bacterial framework that will recruit our bodies’ home-made, protective molecular means to stave off the emerging public-health catastrophe of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections; and 3) technologies for extracting water from the atmosphere in regions where water is scarce. Seth also shares his government-service experiences by which he has come to know the value of science policy in moving society toward badly-needed solutions. He finishes his story with a pitch to graduate students and others in the innovation ecosystems to embrace exciting and consequential roles in the government R&D landscape that they might not know about, including ones at DARPA. Says Seth in support of that advice, “DARPA has been…one of the best places I could ever imagine working.” When he is not uncovering new marvels of cellular chemistry or opening pathways to new technologies, Seth, a fan and amateur historian of muscle cars, just might be seen tooling around in his 1963 Corvette Stingray convertible.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, John Waterston, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Strategic Technology Office, lets listeners in on his oceanic immersions both as a naval officer and a technology developer. Now a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, John offers snapshots of living, working, and serving on our nation’s nuclear submarines before describing his current work at DARPA to develop technologies to better understand, monitor, and navigate the planet’s most prevalent environment—the oceans. In one of his ambitious programs, John seeks to deliver what has been a coveted but elusive capability—the equivalent of GPS that operates even in the deep ocean. In a related program, John explains how very low-frequency (VLF) electromagnetic signals from lightning that occurs relentlessly around the world can become a key to a back-up positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) system in case our must-have GPS goes down. And in perhaps his most audacious program, the Ocean of Things, he is assembling what amounts to an ocean-scale nervous systems comprising tens of thousands of floating sensors, opening pathways to an unprecedentedly fine-grained understanding of what is happening in vast ocean environments. Says John about the ocean, “it’s so immense, covering 70% of the Earth’s surface, yet even with all of the ships, all of the aircraft, all of the satellites, and all of the existing sensors, we are severely undersampling this environment.” He has made it his mission to fill in that data shortfall, which he says could significantly improve weather forecasting for the benefit of both military and civilian sectors.

Welcome to Sounds of Innovation, a new intermittent feature of our Voices from DARPA podcast. Rather than hearing the voices of program managers, which is normally what you get in a Voices from DARPA podcast, in each Sounds of Innovation episode, you will hear some of the soundscapes of research and development…and learn just a little bit about what new world-changing capabilities those sounds could lead to.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, William (Bill) Carter, a program manager since 2018 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office, recounts his scientific journey. It began with childhood wonder amidst star-blazoned New Mexico skies and high-school summer jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and has taken him now, literally, to leading edges of materials science and engineering. His portfolio of programs at DARPA aims to deliver materials that increase the practical range of hypersonic vehicles by breaking the “heat barrier,” that is, by taming the extreme heat flows on surfaces of hypersonic platforms; thermoelectric materials and systems for quiet, portable power generation in contested areas; and nanoscale-engineered materials suitable for such jobs as replacing tendons and printing electronics as easily as laser-printing a photograph. Says Carter, “I have absolutely unbounded optimism about the potential for science to solve today’s most important problems and I think materials science can contribute.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Tom Rondeau, a program manager since 2016 — first in the agency’s Microsystems Technology Office before switching over this year to the Strategic Technology Office — takes listeners on a kaleidoscopic tour of his efforts to usher wireless technology into a new era. Anchored in an emerging technology arena known as software-defined radio (SDR), his programs dive deeply into the pathbreaking hardware, software, computational techniques, power efficiencies, and innovation communities that it will take to do more with the electromagnetic spectrum than ever before. Think of every cellphone call ever made, of satellite communication, and now of billions of devices communicating wirelessly via apps and the internet. And now think beyond all of that. The tattoos of Maxwell’s Equations — which famously capture the behavior of electromagnetic waves as discerned by the 19th century physicist James Clerk Maxwell — on Tom’s forearms reveal just how devoted he is to his technology-development mission. “I look down at those every day and have a moment of awe about what we have been able to do,” he tells listeners. And then he has another moment of awe as he imagines how much more he might be able to pull off as a DARPA program manager.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Stacie Williams, a program manager since 2019 in the agency’s Tactical Technology Office, reveals how a lifelong love of optical and photonic phenomena, beginning with fireflies during her childhood, is now unfolding in her stewardship of ambitious light-and-optics-centric programs at DARPA. One of these, the Deformable Mirror (DeMi) program, recently reached a milestone with the placement from the International Space Station of a dime-sized deformable mirror on a loaf-sized CubeSat platform. The goal of DeMi is to deliver cheaper, lighter, smaller telescope mirrors—in the form of a microelectromechanical system (MEMS)—that could open unprecedented options for space-based ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) technology that, in Stacie’s words, “helps us understand what’s going on with a space eyeview.” In another optics-tech effort under Stacie’s wing, researchers are learning how to design so-called metamaterials—with engineered microstructures that manipulate electromagnetic wavelengths—that also could greatly simplify, lighten, and cheapen far more massive, complex, and expensive conventional telescopes. In the podcast, Stacie also recounts her work beyond technology as a champion of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for economically disadvantaged communities.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Matt Turek, a program manager since 2018 in the agency’s Information Innovation Office, discusses his portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI) programs that could not be more timely. Two of these programs map onto this harrowing moment in history where one of the most precious assets we can have as a society — trust in media and in various channels and modes of communications — is evaporating. Another program gets at a different kind of crucial trust: human trust in the AI tools that are becoming embedded and influential in our everyday lives and in government responsibilities including national security and defense. And in yet another program, Turek is asking the research talent out there to build one of the most powerful components of human intelligence into artificial intelligence: common sense. Turek says he hopes to encourage AI researchers to, in his words, “work together in ways that aren’t currently happening or maybe they didn’t envision happening.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Air Force Lt. Col. C. David Lewis, a program manager since 2018 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office, takes listeners on a tour of the amazingly diverse portfolio of programs he oversees. The foci of these range from the deep math underlying optimization challenges, such as planning complex routes and managing supply chains, to using untapped signals in the atmosphere as indicators of both natural and human activities on the planet’s surface. He also shares a timely chronicle of his navigation, as a Black person, through the individual and systemic racism that confronted him as he pursued his love of science (which his sixth-grade teacher and key educational ally recognized) and later his ambition to become a fighter pilot (and even an astronaut), a physicist, and then to land what he calls his “dream job” as a DARPA program manager. Amidst the vexing challenges to fully open educational and professional opportunities to all Americans, David has a forwarding-looking message for listeners. “We are going to evolve,” he says. “It’s important for all Americans now to think about what they want the future to look like.”

In this thematic episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, three program managers discuss the possibility that emerging technologies in the arena of artificial intelligence (AI) are converging toward an “artificial-science” toolset that could open an era we might designate as Science 2.0. The prospect of AI scientists making Nobel-prize-caliber discoveries is not around the corner, but it is a distinct possibility for the future, suggests program manager Jiangying Zhou of the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO). On the way toward that ideal, adds program manager Joshua Elliott of the Information Innovation Office (I2O), we are likely to rely on scientifically-minded AI tools to pump up the efficiency of scientific discovery and to tap into the vast and growing reservoirs of data, which biological minds might not be as suited to make sense of as AI ones. For Bartlett Russell, also of DSO, perhaps the most important advance during the evolution toward a Science 2.0 era will reside in the use of AI tools that enable more people than ever to embrace the scientific enterprise. The more minds doing science, she says, the more discovery we can expect.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Dr. John Burke, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), goes deep, quantum-mechanics deep. The miniaturized, affordable, and ultrastable atomic clocks he hopes to make possible would kick in if the GPS system were to go down due to natural or adversarial actions. Such clocks could keep the military machine viable while also preserving or even enhancing the operation of civilian must-haves ranging from financial transactions to ridesharing (think Uber and Lyft). Burke has teams of researchers pursuing magnificently sensitive magnetometers for detecting objects, materials, and activities otherwise hidden underground, underwater, or behind bone. Among these sensors’ potential applications is real-time, in-field diagnostics and monitoring of concussions, whether in battlefield or sports field settings. These and other sensing capabilities Burke is fostering are based largely on the quantum-mechanical ways that atoms behave (e.g., the nuclear oscillations that serve at the invariant ticks of atomic clocks) or respond to signals in the world (e.g., faint magnetic fields from brains or buried ordnance). The overall goal of this quantum-mechanical finessing, Burke says, is to “peer around the curtain to see more and more of everything around us.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Dr. Michael Fiddy, a program manager since 2016 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), takes listeners on a whirlwind tour of his programs. They all share a common thread, which stems from Fiddy's lifelong interest in how light — electromagnetic (EM) energy, more generally — interacts with matter. At DARPA, he has expressed that interest by challenging researchers to investigate whether cells interact with one another via EM signals; how it might be possible to use low-frequency EM radiation to see through just about anything (including metal); and how precisely engineered surfaces might tap into quantum mechanical phenomena (Casimir forces) in the vacuum of space in a quest for fuel-less propulsion technology. As Fiddy points out in the podcast, “We have been doing science for a few hundred years and there still is an awful lot that we don’t know.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Dr. Timothy Chung, a program manager since 2016 in the agency's Tactical Technology Office, delves into his robotics and autonomous technology programs – the Subterranean (SubT) Challenge and OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET). From robot soccer to live-fly experimentation programs involving dozens of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), he explains how he aims to assist humans heading into unknown environments via advances in collaborative autonomy and robotics. The SubT Challenge focuses on the underground – human-made tunnels, the urban underground, and natural cave networks. Teams from around the world vie for prizes via Systems (physical) and Virtual competitions, with air and ground platforms attempting to rapidly map, navigate, and search the subterranean domain.The OFFSET program envisions small-unit infantry forces seamlessly teaming with swarms of even hundreds of (UASs) and/or small unmanned ground systems. The program combines emerging technologies in swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming. Chung shares how he learned to see things not as impossible, but rather un-possible because, “it's not that it can't be done. It just hasn't been done yet.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Mark Wrobel, a program manager since 2019 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), chronicles progress in the SIGMA+ program and its potential near-term relevance to monitoring the environment for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The now-completed predecessor program, SIGMA, delivered a sensor and analysis system for detecting imminent nuclear and radiological threats in complex settings like cities, stadiums, and travel hubs. That system has been transitioning into deployments. The charge of the SIGMA+ program is to expand the threat-detection system’s abilities to include an extensive range of chemical, explosive, and biological agents. To avoid costly false alarms and potentially lethal false negatives (missed detections), the technology must be able to reliably discern actual threats from the myriad benign nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological signals that typically are present in any given location. As Wrobel puts it, “We are trying to move detection to the left of boom.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Eric Van Gieson, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), recounts how a boyhood fascination with DARPA ultimately led to his current role overseeing a portfolio of envelope-pushing programs. These include a program that seeks new diagnostic tools for perhaps the earliest-possible detection of exposure to pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19; an effort to identify and leverage the biomolecular bases underlying optimal performance in such roles as piloting aircraft and participating in special forces missions; research toward new personal-protection technologies that combine advanced featherweight fabrics with designed, bio-based agents applied directly to the body where they can neutralize injurious chemical and biological agents before they can do damage; and a bold biomedical strategy that stands a chance of replacing some medicine-based treatments (for conditions ranging from irritable bowel syndrome to post-traumatic stress disorder) with treatments based on the electrical stimulation of the peripheral nervous system, particularly the far-reaching vagus nerve.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, we turn again to Dr. Anne Fischer, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), this time to learn how she has been swerving two of her programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of those programs, Accelerating Molecular Discovery (AMD), centers on developing machine-learning and other computational techniques to dramatically streamline the discovery of molecules with properties relevant to the Department of Defense. Think here of chemical-warfare simulants for research, coatings that protect assets and personnel, specialty fuels, and medicines to counter emerging threats. With an eye on that last one, Dr. Fischer has been swerving some AMD work into an urgent hunt for molecules with previously unrecognized antibiotic properties. One specific target is new treatments for secondary, bacterial lung infections in patients with COVID-19. The other program Dr. Fischer is swerving into the COVID-19 response is Make-It. The program’s envisioned deliverables for the DoD include tabletop chemical-synthesis systems that can produce chemicals when and where they are needed. Think here of the ability to quickly synthesize pharmaceuticals in a battlefield setting. Think here also of a chemical-synthesis channel independent of globalized supply chains that can become compromised. Now, this capability for on-demand synthesis of chemical products, including antivirals and reagents for diagnostic tests, is revealing Make-It technology as a promising component of our ability to respond to emergencies such as outbreaks of infectious diseases. For a previous discussion with Dr. Fischer about her background, interests, and long-term goals for the programs she manages, please listen to Episode 22, titled The Chemquistador.

We find ourselves in pandemic times. The global population is under siege by an infectious virus new to humankind. It’s called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2. It’s the causative agent of the pandemic disease designated COVID-19. This viral adversary knows no politics. It recognizes no national boundaries. It is unconcerned with anyone’s identity. All 7.8 billion of us are the same to the virus: we are all hosts suitable to commandeer to make copies of itself. DARPA has long recognized how devastating pandemic diseases like COVID-19 could be and the Agency embraced the attitude that it could do something about the threat of pandemics. In recent years, it has been creating and supporting communities of innovators who are doing the science and applying the lessons they are learning to create a technology platform that stands a chance of this: preventing any outbreak of infectious disease—anywhere and anytime—from growing into a global conflagration like the one we are experiencing right now. In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, join a team of program managers in the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office as they explain how they are striving to develop a multi-pronged technology platform that has the potential to render COVID-19 humanity’s last pandemic. Transcript: http://www.darpa.mil/attachments/PreventingPandemics_transcript.txt

In this episode of our Voices from DARPA podcast, Joseph Evans, a program manager since 2015 in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Strategic Technology Office (STO), shares with listeners how his embrace of data, communications technologies, and the electromagnetic spectrum—the invisible place where radio, radar, and other radio frequency (RF) signals live and propagate—has led to the portfolio of programs that he now oversees. This portfolio includes a program that essentially renders visible the frenetic RF activity that is going on in the space we occupy. Another program features the challenge of converting radar systems into communications channels. In yet another, Joe is striving to find better ways of leveraging the ever-growing reservoir of commercial and open-source satellite imagery to improve warfighters’ abilities to detect, monitor, and track what is going on, that is, to improve situational awareness. Joe also flies planes, skippers boats, skies, runs, and sometimes straps on a guitar to send acoustic waves into the same space hosting all of those electromagnetic waves that he cares so much about.

In this episode of our Voices from DARPA podcast, Joseph Evans, a program manager since 2015 in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Strategic Technology Office (STO), shares with listeners how his embrace of data, communications technologies, and the electromagnetic spectrum—the invisible place where radio, radar, and other radio frequency (RF) signals live and propagate—has led to the portfolio of programs that he now oversees. This portfolio includes a program that essentially renders visible the frenetic RF activity that is going on in the space we occupy. Another program features the challenge of converting radar systems into communications channels. In yet another, Joe is striving to find better ways of leveraging the ever-growing reservoir of commercial and open-source satellite imagery to improve warfighters’ abilities to detect, monitor, and track what is going on, that is, to improve situational awareness. Joe also flies planes, skippers boats, skies, runs, and sometimes straps on a guitar to send acoustic waves into the same space hosting all of those electromagnetic waves that he cares so much about.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Anne Fischer, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), recounts how she has been applying a chemist’s mindset, which began taking hold in her as a child when her parents gave her a chemistry set, in her boundary-pushing portfolio of extreme-chemistry projects at DARPA. In one of them, she is overseeing research that could pump up the creativity and productivity of chemists by way of artificial intelligence that plans and optimizes molecule-making procedures and with automated equipment that synthesizes the actual molecules. In another of her projects, Fischer has her sights on molecule-based computing that could open the way to radically new and powerful ways to process information and store data. In yet another program, she is helping to develop one of the most unusual pickup trucks ever: it will have an engine that burns and destroys chemical warfare agents, producing power in the process. There’s plenty more to Fischer’s expansive molecular vision on the world and national defense.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Anne Fischer, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), recounts how she has been applying a chemist’s mindset, which began taking hold in her as a child when her parents gave her a chemistry set, in her boundary-pushing portfolio of extreme-chemistry projects at DARPA. In one of them, she is overseeing research that could pump up the creativity and productivity of chemists by way of artificial intelligence that plans and optimizes molecule-making procedures and with automated equipment that synthesizes the actual molecules. In another of her projects, Fischer has her sights on molecule-based computing that could open the way to radically new and powerful ways to process information and store data. In yet another program, she is helping to develop one of the most unusual pickup trucks ever: it will have an engine that burns and destroys chemical warfare agents, producing power in the process. There’s plenty more to Fischer’s expansive molecular vision on the world and national defense.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Paul “Rusty” Thomas, a program manager since 2017 in the Agency’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), chronicles how his several-decade career within the commercial space industry has taught him a thing or two about designing, manufacturing, launching, and operating more than 130 civilian and government satellites. At DARPA, he is bringing that background to bear on one of the Agency’s more ambitious space-technology projects, Blackjack, which upon completion could encompass a mesh-like network of thousands of small and inexpensive satellites for delivering global, all-the-time sensing, communications, and other national-security services. With boots-on-the-ground experience in Afghanistan, a pilot’s license, and a personal altitude of 6’8”, Rusty projects a larger-than-life persona, illuminated by an infectious sense of mission to innovate the way toward future-generation space technology.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Paul “Rusty” Thomas, a program manager since 2017 in the Agency’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), chronicles how his several-decade career within the commercial space industry has taught him a thing or two about designing, manufacturing, launching, and operating more than 130 civilian and government satellites. At DARPA, he is bringing that background to bear on one of the Agency’s more ambitious space-technology projects, Blackjack, which upon completion could encompass a mesh-like network of thousands of small and inexpensive satellites for delivering global, all-the-time sensing, communications, and other national-security services. With boots-on-the-ground experience in Afghanistan, a pilot’s license, and a personal altitude of 6’8”, Rusty projects a larger-than-life persona, illuminated by an infectious sense of mission to innovate the way toward future-generation space technology.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Renee Wegrzyn, a program manager since 2016 in the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), recounts the origins of her current interests in synthetic biology and genomics, both of them powerful frameworks for engineering biological systems for technological ends. Still wielding influence are her childhood days amidst Florida’s abundant wildlife, a science-hooked sister, and a high school field trip in which Renee encountered fossil mastodon teeth. Her subsequent experience in the biotechnology industry got her hooked on the versatile power of combining biology and engineering in ways that can produce new medical technologies, materials, and other products. Along the way, Wegrzyn recounts what for her was a “Sputnik moment” in biology, based on the emergence of the celebrity gene-editing toolset known for short as CRISPR, which has underwritten an immensely powerful genetic and genomic engineering framework. Under Renee’s DARPA programs, Living Foundries and Safe Genes, researchers are innovating new means of manipulating and leveraging biology’s ways of eliciting traits in organisms and of making molecules and materials while also developing means for keeping those same bioengineering capabilities in check to hedge against their misuse or unintended consequences.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Renee Wegrzyn, a program manager since 2016 in the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), recounts the origins of her current interests in synthetic biology and genomics, both of them powerful frameworks for engineering biological systems for technological ends. Still wielding influence are her childhood days amidst Florida’s abundant wildlife, a science-hooked sister, and a high school field trip in which Renee encountered fossil mastodon teeth. Her subsequent experience in the biotechnology industry got her hooked on the versatile power of combining biology and engineering in ways that can produce new medical technologies, materials, and other products. Along the way, Wegrzyn recounts what for her was a “Sputnik moment” in biology, based on the emergence of the celebrity gene-editing toolset known for short as CRISPR, which has underwritten an immensely powerful genetic and genomic engineering framework. Under Renee’s DARPA programs, Living Foundries and Safe Genes, researchers are innovating new means of manipulating and leveraging biology’s ways of eliciting traits in organisms and of making molecules and materials while also developing means for keeping those same bioengineering capabilities in check to hedge against their misuse or unintended consequences.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, David Gunning chronicles his three tours of duty as a DARPA program manager (PM), including his latest tour with the Agency’s Information Innovation Office. Throughout his DARPA service, David has combined his training and interests in computer science and psychology in ways that have extended the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, both for warfighters and for the general public. During his first tour as a PM in the 90’s, he managed a portfolio of AI projects including the Command Post of the Future (CPoF) program, which delivered technology that was later adopted by the US Army as its Command and Control system for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his previous tour, from 2003-2008, David managed the Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL) program that later led to Siri, perhaps the most famous virtual personal assistant. Now, in his third tour, he is aiming for a new generation of artificial intelligences that earn the confidence of their human users by being able to explain the decisions and actions that emerge from their internal computation. David is delighted that as he works to expand the frontiers of AI, he also will have the privilege of participating in the emergence of a more familiar variety of intelligence in his first grandson, who lives nearby.

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, David Gunning chronicles his three tours of duty as a DARPA program manager (PM), including his latest tour with the Agency’s Information Innovation Office. Throughout his DARPA service, David has combined his training and interests in computer science and psychology in ways that have extended the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, both for warfighters and for the general public. During his first tour as a PM in the 90’s, he managed a portfolio of AI projects including the Command Post of the Future (CPoF) program, which delivered technology that was later adopted by the US Army as its Command and Control system for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his previous tour, from 2003-2008, David managed the Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL) program that later led to Siri, perhaps the most famous virtual personal assistant. Now, in his third tour, he is aiming for a new generation of artificial intelligences that earn the confidence of their human users by being able to explain the decisions and actions that emerge from their internal computation. David is delighted that as he works to expand the frontiers of AI, he also will have the privilege of participating in the emergence of a more familiar variety of intelligence in his first grandson, who lives nearby.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, COL Matthew Hepburn, a program manager since 2013 with the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), explains how his urgent ambition to develop ways and means of disarming current and emerging infectious and pandemic diseases—think here of Ebola, influenza, and Chikungunya—has led to a portfolio of go-for-the-gold programs that ultimately could reduce human suffering by an immeasurable degree. A biomedical engineer, physician, and global disease fighter by training and experience, Matt has known since he was a child that taking care of people was going to be his mission and he says DARPA is a place where he might be able to carry out that childhood dream to an extreme that would not be possible elsewhere.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, COL Matthew Hepburn, a program manager since 2013 with the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), explains how his urgent ambition to develop ways and means of disarming current and emerging infectious and pandemic diseases—think here of Ebola, influenza, and Chikungunya—has led to a portfolio of go-for-the-gold programs that ultimately could reduce human suffering by an immeasurable degree. A biomedical engineer, physician, and global disease fighter by training and experience, Matt has known since he was a child that taking care of people was going to be his mission and he says DARPA is a place where he might be able to carry out that childhood dream to an extreme that would not be possible elsewhere.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, electrical engineer Kerry Bernstein, a program manager since 2012 with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), chronicles how his decades of experience in the trenches of the microelectronics manufacturing world drives what he does at DARPA. He is all about ensuring the reliability and integrity of the microelectronic chips the country needs and uses in just about every military and civilian setting you can think of. With electronics manufacturing distributed over so many countries and manufacturing facilities now, the threat of tampering, counterfeiting, and other nefarious actions has become more complex and in need of management than ever. For his part, Bernstein has been shepherding the development of some of the highest technology there is—in tiny glitter-sized packages, no less—to keep our electronics supply chain safe and sound.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, electrical engineer Kerry Bernstein, a program manager since 2012 with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), chronicles how his decades of experience in the trenches of the microelectronics manufacturing world drives what he does at DARPA. He is all about ensuring the reliability and integrity of the microelectronic chips the country needs and uses in just about every military and civilian setting you can think of. With electronics manufacturing distributed over so many countries and manufacturing facilities now, the threat of tampering, counterfeiting, and other nefarious actions has become more complex and in need of management than ever. For his part, Bernstein has been shepherding the development of some of the highest technology there is—in tiny glitter-sized packages, no less—to keep our electronics supply chain safe and sound.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, physicist Rosa Alejandra “Ale” Lukaszew, a program manager who is just finishing her first year with the Agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), recounts how her interest in quantum phenomena took root at the age of 10 when already she could write down the equations of uncertainty. Now, at DARPA, she is channeling what became a lifelong fascination with fundamental physics into opening new pathways toward understanding and harnessing electronic ensembles and the correlated ways these diminutive entities “spin” and otherwise behave in various material settings. In her role as a program manager, Ale would like to make it possible for the researchers working on her DARPA programs to forge next-generation paradigms in electronics for applications in memory, logic, energy conversion devices, and sensors.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, physicist Rosa Alejandra “Ale” Lukaszew, a program manager who is just finishing her first year with the Agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), recounts how her interest in quantum phenomena took root at the age of 10 when already she could write down the equations of uncertainty. Now, at DARPA, she is channeling what became a lifelong fascination with fundamental physics into opening new pathways toward understanding and harnessing electronic ensembles and the correlated ways these diminutive entities “spin” and otherwise behave in various material settings. In her role as a program manager, Ale would like to make it possible for the researchers working on her DARPA programs to forge next-generation paradigms in electronics for applications in memory, logic, energy conversion devices, and sensors.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, sociocultural anthropologist Adam Russell, a program manager with the Agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), discusses his vision for a range of technologies that could help usher in a next-generation social science. At the crux of this future view are novel experimental designs, practices, and tools to tackle research challenges that traditionally have limited the value of social science for national security. Russell believes these advances may help yield scientific results that are far more reliable, validated, predictive, and otherwise valuable for making decisions and basing actions than has been the case to date. Among the emerging and morphing issues that affect national security, and for which Russell says new approaches in social sciences might help, is the way modern environments can impact social identities and the choices people and groups make based on those identities. Contributing to his own self identifications, and to his cognitive style as a scientist, are his experiences as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and a national-level rugby player.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, Jim Galambos, a program manager with the Agency’s Strategic Technology Office (STO), talks about the opportunities and challenges of rethinking military platforms like submarines and aircraft as systems of systems, much as a human body can be thought of as a system of circulatory, neurological, sensory, musculoskeletal, and other subsystems. The system-of-systems paradigm, Galambos says, is a pathway toward military assets that can be more versatile, agile, evolvable, tailorable, survivable, and otherwise capable than previous generations of platforms. He also discusses the value that informative failure can have for achieving ambitious successes.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, Maj. Christopher Orlowski, a program manager with extensive military experience and now at the end of his tenure of the Agency’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), draws a line from his research programs in mechanized and robotic undersuits, vehicles, and human-machine systems, which are driven by the goal of empowering warfighters on the ground in unprecedented ways, all of the way back to the G. I. Joe cartoons he watched as a kid.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, synthetic biologist and program manager Justin Gallivan of the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO) shares his vision of leveraging biology’s astonishing, evolution-honed abilities for making molecules and materials (think here of protein and wood) into powerful new technologies that fall into the emerging category of synthetic biology. Among the potential payoffs he discusses include pre-toughening warfighters’ guts for the microbial challenges they face in faraway missions and growing the structures of military installations from what could be thought of as seeds. Be warned: blue poop and interplanetary construction come up in this engaging discussion.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, get inside the full-spectrum engineering head of Dr. Troy Olsson, a program manager since 2014 in the Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO). Listen in as Olsson describes progress toward vanishing materials that can keep sensitive electronic components out of adversaries’ hands; unmanned air vehicles that can deliver provisions and then just disappear; massive miniaturization of low-frequency antennas for underwater radio communication; and stand-alone sensors that require almost no power at all yet for years remain vigilant to sounds, radio signals, and other environmental signals of interest to warfighters. And then there’s those really far-out technologies that Olsson hopes to enjoy one day.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, get to know Dr. Jonathan Pfautz, a program manager since 2015 in DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O), where he epitomizes the Agency’s deliberate blindness to traditional disciplinary boundaries. With a background in computer engineering and electrical engineering, as well as in the cognitive and behavioral sciences, Pfautz is seeking to develop new techniques for massive-scale simulations of social behavior, including information sharing, as it takes form and evolves within the context of today’s astoundingly powerful information technologies and online social networking infrastructures. Pfautz also is concerned about the evolution of human-machine etiquette. And listen in on how he and his wife are so profoundly devoted to the scientific enterprise that they named their daughters after two giants in the history of science.

Mr. Wade Shen of the Agency’s Information Innovation Office has made it his mission to improve how human beings and their computers put their respective heads and cognitive frameworks together to yield deep insight into how the world works and how information affects the way people think and act. Listen in on how Shen is enacting that mission with the DARPA programs he oversees, among them the Data Driven Discovery of Models (D3M) program, the Quantitative Crisis Response (QCR) program, and the Memex program, which is devoted to advancing search capabilities far beyond the current state of the art. Shen also muses about what it would take to build a universal translator that would enable all 7.4 billion people on the planet to overcome language barriers and to talk with one another.

In this episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Fariba Fahroo of the Agency’s Defense Sciences Office as she discusses how important mathematics can be for, in her words, “keeping our models honest.” By characterizing the uncertainties inherent in the computer models and algorithms we develop to better understand complex phenomena, such as the flow of air over aircraft surfaces and through engines, as well as to design, engineer, and control today’s ever more complicated civilian and military systems, Fahroo tells us how she aims to cultivate modeling frameworks within which these systems can be built and deployed with unprecedented degrees of confidence and insight into their strengths and vulnerabilities.

In this episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Lin Haas of the Agency’s Strategic Technology Office as he shares his expansive view on the current and future roles of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technology, whose most famous incarnation is known as the Global Positioning System (GPS). Haas reveals ambitious PNT programs that include efforts to develop an undersea system that provides omnipresent positioning capabilities across ocean basins where GPS signals do not go and to exploit environmental signals, such as the electromagnetic features of lightning, for back-up geolocation service if GPS were to become unavailable. You will also learn how a guy ends up with the name Lin.

In this episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Blake Bextine of the Agency’s Biological Technologies Office as he talks about his virus- and insect-mediated vision for protecting food crops from natural and human-wrought threats, including drought and biological warfare. With his Insect Allies program, Bextine aims to increase food security by recruiting insects to deliver viruses, which have been modified to bear protective genes, into plants where those virus-carried genes could save the plants from the threats they face. His approach offers a number of potential advantages over today's slash-and-burn method of managing diseased crops. Bextine also shares some tips on how to find and cook insects, especially when you're in the wilderness and your stomach is growling.

In this episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Paul Cohen of the Agency’s Information Innovation Office as he talks about his efforts to develop better and more seamless ways for human intelligence and machine intelligence to combine their respective strengths into a hybrid and collaborative intelligence that can do more than either of its components.

In this episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Dev Palmer of the Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office as he talks about turning an early interest in the vacuum tubes of his guitar amplifiers into a career as an electrical engineer. His mission? To push electronic and electromagnetic technology along new frontiers that could lead to more capable radar, electronic warfare, and communications systems, and even to entirely new technologies. In his few years as a program manager, Palmer has scored a world record with the fastest linear amplifier ever made; opened the way to vastly increasing the power output of high-frequency circuits by developing next-generation, miniaturized vacuum electronic devices; and pioneered novel approaches to integrating minuscule magnetic components into the already super-dense microcircuitry on chips. One more thing: with the time he spends commuting, Palmer has given some thought to what it would take to usher teleportation from the science fiction side to the reality side.

In this third episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Dan Green, as he discusses the Agency’s innovation-catalyzing roles in the Age of Semiconductors. For Green, silicon, the celebrity high-tech material of our times, is only one species in what he views as a semiconductor zoo. For his part, Green, who works in the Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office, has been overseeing DARPA’s efforts to usher the compound semiconductor, gallium nitride (or GaN), beyond its already transformative role in the world of LED lighting into a range of electronic and radiofrequency applications important for national security contexts--among them electronic warfare, radar, and communications--and eventually into an empowering variety of applications in the civilian world.

In the latest installment of DARPA’s new podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Lindsay Millard as she discusses the Agency’s satellite-protecting Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) program. From its mountaintop perch in New Mexico, this revolutionary optical telescope is enabling much faster discovery and tracking of previously unseen or hard-to-find small objects in orbit that could potentially collide with satellites, in a vast volume of space Millard likens to “tens of thousands of oceans.” SST’s wide-open eye on the sky has also become the most prolific tool ever for observing near-Earth objects and asteroids that could potentially impact Earth. After four years of extensive testing and evaluation, DARPA is celebrating the upcoming transition of SST to the U.S. Air Force on Tuesday, October 18, 2016.

In this premiere episode of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's new podcast series, Voices from DARPA, program manager Tyler McQuade, who works in the Agency's Defense Sciences Office, reveals his vision of accelerating scientists' ability to discover and make a vast variety of new molecules for medical, military, and many other applications.