About IARPAIntelligence Advanced Research Projects ActivityIARPA_286c6932-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb3Intelligence CommunityIARPA LeadersDr. Peter HighnamIARPA Director -- Dr. Peter Highnam was named IARPA Director on 30 August 2012. Dr. Highnam joined IARPA in February 2009 as the Office Director for Incisive Analysis. Prior to IARPA, he was a senior advisor in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and then in the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). From 1999 to 2003, Dr. Highnam was a DARPA program manager with programs in electronic warfare and airborne communications. Before joining DARPA, he worked for more than a decade in applied research in industry. Dr. Highnam holds a Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award and a Department of Defense Civilian Exceptional Service Award. He is a co-inventor on three patents in commercial seismic exploration and holds a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.Dr. Catherine MarshIARPA Deputy Director -- Dr. Catherine Marsh joined IARPA as its Deputy Director in February, 2013. Dr. Marsh is a power sources expert with extensive experience leading development teams both in industry and for the government. Prior to IARPA, Dr. Marsh was the Director of Power Sources Center in the Directorate of Science and Technology at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she led a group that provide multi-disciplinary, agile, flexible, and innovative power solutions for the Intelligence Community. While in industry, she led the team that put lithium ion technology on numerous platforms, including the MARS Rover Spirit & Opportunity. Dr. Marsh is a DNI Fellow and a member of the CIA’s Distinguished Expert Cadre. She holds B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in inorganic and analytical chemistry from Brown University.Dr. Jason MathenyAssociate Director, Office for Anticipating Surprise (OAS) -- Dr. Jason Matheny is an Associate Director of the Office for Anticipating Surprise and also manages IARPA's OSI and ForeST Programs. He previously worked at Oxford University, the World Bank, the Applied Physics Laboratory, the Center for Biosecurity and Princeton University, and is the co-founder of two biotechnology companies. Dr. Matheny holds a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University, an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University, an M.B.A. from Duke University and a B.A. from the University of Chicago. He received the Intelligence Community's Award for Individual Achievement in Science and Technology.Dr. Dewey MurdickAssociate Director, Office for Anticipating Surprise (OAS) -- Dr. Dewey Murdick is an Associate Director of IARPA's Office for Anticipating Surprise. He joined IARPA as a Program Manager in January 2010 and focused on technologies that allow analysts to rapidly prioritize high-value information and forecast emerging events from large volumes of diverse data. Prior to joining IARPA, Dewey served as a scientific and technical analyst for the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), where he assessed technical capabilities and their mission impact to support decision makers within the Department of Defense. Dewey holds a B.S. in Physics from Andrews University and his Ph.D. in Engineering Physics with an emphasis in computational materials physics from the University of Virginia. He received the Distinguished Analysis Award for Excellence in Intelligence Community Collaboration and Analytic Insight from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Army's Civilian of the Year Award from NGIC.Dr. Catherine CotellDirector, Incisive Analysis (IA) Office -- Dr. Catherine Cotell is Director of IARPA's Office of Incisive Analysis. She joined IARPA in November 2014. Dr. Cotell’s career has been dedicated to delivering innovative technology-based solutions to both the Intelligence Community (IC) and the Department of Defense. She served as a science, strategy and transition advisor to the Basic and Applied Sciences Department at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for Analytic Services Inc. and as Chief Scientist at Noblis. As Vice President at In-Q-Tel, Dr. Cotell launched In-Q-Tel’s University Outreach program and managed In-Q-Tel’s largest technology practice, Applications Software & Analytics, investing on behalf of the IC in knowledge management, search and discovery, machine translation, data visualization, digital media, gaming, modeling and simulation, as well as collaboration and geospatial tools. Prior to In-Q-Tel, Dr. Cotell was head of Technology Transfer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory where she managed and licensed the largest intellectual property portfolio in the Department of Defense. Dr. Cotell holds seminal patents in the field of laser deposition of biocompatible coatings for medical implants. Dr. Cotell began her career as a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories. She holds Ph.D. and S.M. degrees in metallurgy and materials science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in chemistry and mathematics from Wellesley College.Dr. Rita BushDeputy Director, Incisive Analysis Office (IA) -- Dr. Rita Bush is concurrently serving as the Deputy Director and a Program Manager in the Office of Incisive Analysis. She previously served as Division Chief of the Information Exploitation (InfoX) Research Division in the Disruptive Technology Office (DTO), where she oversaw an extensive research portfolio in a variety of topics of interest to the Intelligence Community, including natural language understanding, video exploitation, collaborative work environments, social network analysis, modeling and simulation and information visualization. Her current research interests include serious games, novel human-computer interaction technologies and virtual worlds. Prior to becoming a federal government employee, Dr. Bush was employed as a Program Manager at AT&T and at Telcordia Technologies. She began her career as a researcher in Human Factors at Bell Labs. She holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology.Dr. William VanderlindeDirector, Safe and Secure Operations Office (SSO) -- Dr. William Vanderlinde is Director of IARPA's Office of Safe and Secure Operations (SSO). He was an IARPA program manager from 2009 to 2012, leading the CAT and ATHENA programs. He re-joined IARPA in March 2015 as the SSO office director. Dr. Vanderlinde’s work has focused on microelectronics and advanced microscopy, with applications to supply-chain assurance and high-performance computing. He hold two patents for high-resolution electron imaging and has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. His previous positions include Technical Director of the DOD Microelectronics Research Laboratory and as Team Leader for Nanotechnology at the Laboratory for Physical Sciences. He was General Chair of the International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis in 2010 and serves on the Electron Device Failure Analysis Society Board of Directors. He holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Cornell University, an M.S. in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in physics from the University of Virginia. He is a DNI Fellow and an elected Fellow of ASM International.Dr. Edward BaranoskiDirector, Smart Collection Office (SC) -- Dr. Edward J. Baranoski is Director of IARPA's Office of Smart Collection. Prior to joining IARPA in August 2009, he was Director of Advanced Technology at Argon ST, a C4ISR company in Northern Virginia. From 2004 through 2008, he was a program manager in the Special Projects Office and Strategic Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where his focus was on sensing, communication and navigation in urban environments. From 1990 through 2004, he worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, serving on the technical staff developing space-time adaptive processing algorithms and as group leader of the Embedded Digital Systems Group and ISR Systems Group. Dr. Baranoski previously worked at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. He was also an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation and has served on the IEEE Underwater Acoustics Signal Processing and Sensor Array and Multichannel (SAM) Technical Committees from 2000-2007, and was co-chair of the first IEEE Sensor Array and Multichannel (SAM 2000) Signal Processing Workshop. Dr. Baranoski received his B.S. degree from Drexel University, M.S. from the George Washington University, and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, all in electrical and computer engineering. He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service in 2008._286c6b08-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb3To invest in high-risk, high-payoff research programs to tackle some of the most difficult challenges of the agencies and disciplines in the Intelligence Community (IC) ._286c6be4-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb3ResearchHigh-risk/High-payoff research is about taking risks rather than going for quick wins or sure bets.RiskFailureIn high-risk research, failures are inevitable. Failure is acceptable so long as the failure isn't due to a lack of technical or programmatic integrity and the results are fully documented.Technical IntegrityProgrammatic IntegrityDocumentationHigh Pay-OffNeedsAddress Intelligence Community needs._286c6ca2-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb3Intelligence CommunityIARPA collaborates across the IC to ensure that our research addresses relevant future needs.ChallengesAddress cross-agency challenges_286c6d74-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb31ExpertiseLeverage both operational and R&D expertise from across the IC_286c6e3c-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb32Strategy CoordinationCoordinate transition strategies with our agency partners_286c6ef0-0bba-11e5-8671-43c4363d1fb332015-06-05http://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/about-iarpaOwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net