For this episode of the Voices from DARPA (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/podcast) podcast, we sat down with DARPA Director, Dr. Stefanie Tompkins (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/dr-stefanie-tompkins), to discuss the agency’s upcoming DARPA Forward regional event series. Held on leading research and development campuses throughout the United States and open to all, these conferences will connect DARPA leaders with new communities of talent and partnerships.We also speak with Dr. Max Shulaker...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we explore the portfolio of cryptography expert, privacy advocate, and DARPA program manager, Dr. Joshua Baron (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/dr-joshua-baron). Baron details the possibilities – and potential pitfalls – of technologies such as zero knowledge proofs and blockchains. He also provides a sneak peek into new research that will preserve one’s privacy by rapidly making complex computations on a mobile device.“I'm most interested in the...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we will discuss DARPA’s Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking (INCAS) (https://www.darpa.mil/program/influence-campaign-awareness-and-sensemaking) program. Adversaries exploit misinformation and true information through compelling narratives propagated on social media and online content. INCAS seeks new tools to help analysts quickly identify geopolitical influence campaigns amidst today’s noisy information environment and find better...

Did you know that there’s more energy in the packaging of an MRE than what’s in the food? In this episode of the Voices from DARPA (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/podcast) podcast, we’re discussing “The Future of Food: Meals from Microbes.”First, we will hear from Dr. Molly Jahn, program manager for the Cornucopia program, which seeks to enable food production on-demand and on-site.Next, we’ll speak with Dr. Blake Bextine, who manages the ReSource program, and Dr. Stephen Techtmann...

In this episode, we’ll hear from some of the key stakeholders - including Drs. Al Emondi and Dustin J. Tyler - related to the DARPA Hand Proprioception and Touch (https://www.darpa.mil/program/hand-proprioception-and-touch-interfaces) program, or HAPTIX for short. The goal of HAPTIX, which is part of DARPA’s extensive neurotechnology portfolio, is to create and transition clinically relevant technology in support of wounded warriors suffering from single or multiple limb loss. We discuss the...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we’ll explore a new program with the goal of better identifying and predicting sudden and catastrophic climate change tipping points. Such events could cause major and abrupt disruption to both weather and life on our planet. DARPA’s AI-assisted Climate Tipping-point Modeling (ACTM) (https://www.darpa.mil/program/ai-assisted-climate-tipping-point-modeling) program aims to advance artificial intelligence and machine learning to model complex...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, listeners will hear a “best hits” medley from program managers (PMs), who since 2016 have chronicled in the podcast their joy, sense of accomplishment, scientific stimulation, privilege to influence entire fields of research and development, sense of mission as they further the cause of national defense and security, fun, and, in short, the overall awesomeness of their jobs. Every program manager arrives at DARPA with an expiration date on...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, listeners will learn about an emerging component of DARPA’s institutional culture for delivering technologies that strengthen the nation and redefine what is possible. Called the Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative (EEI) (https://eei.darpa.mil/), this effort is designed to help creative scientists and engineers usher their new high-technology visions all of the way to real in-field, hold-in-your-hand, useful-in-the-world technologies. The...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Sergey Bratus (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/dr-sergey-bratus), a program manager since 2018 in the agency’s Information Innovation Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/I2O), shares his educational and professional journey, beginning in the late 1970s as a computer-smitten middle-schooler in the former Soviet Union and leading to his current and prominent role among those who aim to render the increasingly prevalent and perilous...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Gordon Keeler (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/dr-gordon-keeler), a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Microsystems Technology Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/MTO), takes listeners on a scenic tour of his efforts to integrate electrons and photons in ways that do more computing, more sensing, more decision-making, and more artificial intelligence in cheaper, smaller, lighter, and more energy-efficient packages than has been...

This episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast takes listeners on a tour of an audacious, decade-long project to merge biology and engineering into one of the most powerful engines of molecular invention the world has known. Although plenty of work remains to be done, the program, Living Foundries, is winding down to a close. But not before its community of research performers and collaborators already has delivered a new and versatile biotechnology platform whose consequences have begun to...

  In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, John-Francis Mergen (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/mr-john-francis-mergen), a program manager since 2020 in the agency’s Information Innovation Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/BTO), recounts how his interest in science took off as a child when he received a gift of a low-power magnifier from a family friend who was a geologist. From that gift, Mergen says, he learned about the power of observation and of the mindset one brings...

  In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Tristan McClure-Begley, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Biological Technologies Office, recounts how he knew he wanted to be a biologist at the age of 7. That, thanks to an engineer dad, a psychologist mom, and a catalytic high-school teacher, all of whom ignited Tristan’s curiosity. Now Tristan is a program manager overseeing an ambitious portfolio of programs that is expanding the boundaries of battlefield medicine as well as...

  Voices from DARPA podcast, Alexander (Xander) Walan, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Tactical Technology Office, pegs the source of his lifelong fascination with aircraft and flight to the Chicago Air and Water Shows his dad took him and his four siblings to when they were children. At DARPA, he has applied that interest, his training in aeronautical engineering, a 22-year career in the Air Force overseeing some 70 technology-development programs, and an MBA to his oversight of...

In this episode of the Voices form DARPA podcast, listeners get a status report on DARPA’s ambitious and expansive Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI) and learn about the many touchpoints that DARPA and the microelectronics sector have shared over the past half-century. Also in the podcast is a preview of a follow-on effort, ERI 2.0, which is designed to accelerate the transition of foundational research and development into prototyping, manufacturing, and delivery of next-generation...

Go into a science or engineering laboratory. Close your eyes. And listen. Welcome to our third Sounds of Innovation episode, 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 hear some of the soundscapes of research and development, and you learn just a little bit about the world-changing capabilities those sounds could lead to....

  Voices from DARPA podcast, Scott Wierzbanowski, a program manager since 2016 in the agency’s Tactical Technology Office, recounts how he came of age in a family of test pilots and then embraced the mission of fostering technologies for amplifying the capabilities of airmen, their aircraft, and other defense assets in the sky. Recorded in March 2021, a month before the end of his tour of duty at DARPA, Wierzbanowski, a retired Air Force test pilot, opens windows in the podcast on a lofty and...

  In this episode of the Voices from DARPA (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/podcast) 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...

  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...

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...

  In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Seth Cohen, a program manager since 2019 in the agency’s Biological Technologies Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/BTO), 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...

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, John Waterston (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/mr-john-waterston), a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Strategic Technology Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/STO), 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...

  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...

  In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Tom Rondeau (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/dr-tom-rondeau), a program manager since 2016 — first in the agency’s Microsystems Technology Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/mto) before switching over this year to the Strategic Technology Office (https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/sto) — takes listeners on a kaleidoscopic tour of his efforts to usher wireless technology into a new era. Anchored in an emerging technology arena...