Voices From Darpa

This episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast series explores the possibility of an “energy web” that, much like the World Wide Web easily and quickly spreads information, could instantly distribute energy from remote, currently untapped sources. DARPA Program Manager Col Paul Calhoun describes his bold POWER program, aimed at leveraging power beaming for near-instantaneous energy transport through a multi-path network. The project team plans to demonstrate long-distance wireless power transmission that can power an aircraft. Such a system might also one day readily distribute abundant, far-flung wave or solar generated power to places in need. “If we can get to a world where we are no longer tying energy production to carbon…it allows us to unlock production without some of the negative impacts,” says Calhoun.

At a time when the race to create the best artificial intelligence-enabled technology is at its fiercest, experts at DARPA say we need to recalibrate the direction of research in the field.Within DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, one of the research thrusts focuses on proficient artificial intelligence (AI), which the office defines as how to build AI-enabled systems that we could trust with our lives and not be foolish to do so.This episode of Voices from DARPA features an excerpt from a recent presentation by Dr. Kathleen Fisher, the director of the Information Innovation Office, which is leading DARPA’s initiative to explore future directions of AI for national security, called AI Forward.Dr. Fisher delves into the topic of trustworthy AI for adversarial environments and what it will take to create technology that is more than a tool, but rather function as a true partner.To access the full presentation, visit our YouTube page. DARPA will also accept applications for its AI Forward Workshops through M

If it seems like microchips have been a consistent conversation topic lately, it’s for good reason. Supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors created a new level of awareness about microelectronics. However, the research and development that advance these increasingly powerful technologies goes back decades, with DARPA teaming up to play a key part.This episode of Voices from DARPA examines the journey and impact of one collaborative effort that DARPA’s been part of since the late 1990s. The latest program iteration, the Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0 (JUMP 2.0), recently kicked off with an expanded mission.This episode features Dr. Dev Palmer, a longtime program participant now overseeing DARPA’s JUMP 2.0 efforts as the deputy director of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office; Dr. Adam Knapp, the JUMP 2.0 program manager at longtime partner institution the Semiconductor Research Corporation; and Dr. Tajana Simunic Rosing, a program performer who has been invol

For this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we will be hearing from CDR Jean-Paul Chretien about the newly-launched DARPA Triage Challenge. Previous DARPA challenges have contributed to the self-driving car evolution, responsive space launch, and robotics for disaster response and recovery, and we expect equally transformational results from this one.The DARPA Triage Challenge will use a series of challenge events to spur development of novel physiological features for medical triage. The effort aims to drive breakthrough innovations in identification of “signatures” of injury that will help medical responders perform scalable, timely, and accurate triage. Of particular interest are mass casualty incidents, in both civilian and military settings, when medical resources are limited relative to the need.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrezJNTj90A iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-from-darpa/id1163190520

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we talk with DARPA program manager Dr. Joshua Elliott, and Dr. Graham Lederer, research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey about a recent DARPA competition geared at automating elements of the U.S. Geological Survey’s critical mineral assessment workflow.  The experts discuss the motivations behind the competition, plans for next steps on implementing the resulting solutions, and the potential artificial intelligence tools can have on the U.S. supply chain. Members from the first place teams from each of the sub-challenges also discuss their winning solutions.

For this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we talk with new DARPA program manager, Dr. Alvaro Velasquez, a self-described “researcher at heart.” His current research interests are at the intersection of formal language theory and machine learning for sequential decision-making.Velasquez discusses his path to DARPA and how it serendipitously led him to inheriting management of a new AI program called Assured Neuro Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (ANSR). He also describes his idea for his next project, which will look at neuro symbolic knowledge transfer to accelerate the adoption of machine learning outcomes within modeling and simulation for military systems.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-vK1WAJ0x8iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-from-darpa/id1163190520     

DARPA’s Manta Ray program seeks to demonstrate innovative technologies allowing payload-capable autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to operate on long-duration, long-range missions in ocean environments without the need for on-site human logistics support or maintenance. Such UUVs would offer the potential for persistent operations in forward environments, allowing host vessels increased freedom of operational flexibility while providing traditional servicing ports with relief of workload. They could also enhance our understanding of the oceans. In this podcast, we talk with Manta Ray Program Manager Kyle Woerner and Sandia National Laboratory engineer Kelley Ruehl who is advising on energy harvesting aspects of the program.

For this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we spoke with Dr. Joeanna Arthur who joined DARPA in August 2022 as a program manager, or PM, in the Biological Technologies Office. Her research interests include operational neuroscience, human performance optimization and predictive analytics, leveraging advances in cognitive and behavioral science.We asked Dr. Arthur to provide her perspective as a new PM, what sparked her interest in the field of neuroscience, and what she hopes to accomplish in her limited tenure.

For this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we sat down with DARPA Director, 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 from MIT, who had an early-career opportunity to join the DARPA innovation ecosystem, and Lucia White, graduate student at the University of Wisconsin and member of the US Space Force, who will participate in DARPA Forward as a 2022 DARPA Riser.For more information, visit forward.darpa.mil

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. 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 national security community's relationship with the world,” said Baron. “When I talk about privacy issues, what we address [at DARPA] certainly impacts the Department of Defense community but also the larger American and even global communities.”

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, we will discuss DARPA’s Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking (INCAS) 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 ways to determine the impacts of such propaganda.You’ll hear from leaders of teams working on aspects of the INCAS program – from identifying narratives using lessons from the entertainment industry to exploring how different people react to the same messages – in addition to INCAS Program Manager Brian Kettler. As Kettler says: “Propaganda is not new, but the speed and scale of it is new. The information ecosystem is rapidly evolving. Our adversaries are getting better all the time.”

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 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 from Michigan Technological University, who serves as a program performer on their unique approaches to this daunting problem. That program aims to turn military waste – including plastics - into oils, lubricants, and food.iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-from-darpa/id1163190520Resources:FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2021. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all. Rome, https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/nutritionlibrary/pu

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 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 program’s impact, not only on from a scientific perspective, but more importantly, from a human one. We’ll also learn about various regulatory aspects of the work; ethical, legal and societal implications; and what’s next in the field of prosthetics.

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) program aims to advance artificial intelligence and machine learning to model complex processes that affect Earth’s climate, looking for signs of it going disastrously awry. You’ll hear from the program manager and people working on aspects of the problem, as well as learn about one especially troubling possibility – the slowing, or even entire collapse, of the Atlantic Ocean’s circulating current. “DARPA’s job is to help the United States avoid strategic surprise,” says ACTM program manager Joshua Elliott, “and in my mind there’s no bigger risk or strategic surprise than a sudden and massive and irreversible change in some of the key Earth systems that we rely on for survival.”

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 their badges. It’s a short-term deal that constantly brings in new blood and is routinely cited as part of DARPA’s “special sauce.” Those who become PMs know their jobs likely will end three to five years after they start. Yet so many of them say there is no better job and that they wouldn’t have it any other way. Their collective message is that being a DARPA PM can be a dream job for just about any scientist or engineer, whether they are only beginning to rev up their careers; already making a name for their themselves in

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), 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 mission of EEI, now entering its second year following a pilot phase, is to provide early-stage technology-development teams with veteran innovators who bring with them the proven business savvy it takes to make it through the proverbial Valley of Death. That’s when anything from insufficient funding, missed deadlines, unexpected supply-chain issues, intellectual property disputes, market fluctuations, a federal policy change, or any number of other hazards can kill off even the best of technology ideas. Listeners will hear from Kacy Gerst, DARPA’s

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Sergey Bratus, a program manager since 2018 in the agency’s Information Innovation Office, 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 software, hardware, and networks in our lives much safer to use. His fascination with computer security emerged in the 1990s as a mathematics graduate student when a computer he was programming and responsible for at Northeastern University in Boston was taken over by a hacker. “I probably owe whoever did that a beer,” Bratus tells listeners. Why? Because it set him on his life’s mission to learn as much as he can about the vulnerabilities of software and hardware with the goal of learning how to best minimize or eliminate those vulnerabilities. Noting his embrace of the hacker community for its deep and innovative ex

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, Gordon Keeler, a program manager since 2017 in the agency’s Microsystems Technology Office, 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 possible previously. His work is a showcase of what technology insiders refer to as SWaP-C, which stands for Size, Weight and Power, and Cost. Innovations that shrink one or all of those aspects of a technology can be far more important to realizing practical, affordable technologies and capabilities than the invention itself. As Keeler explains how these and other technology drivers unfold in the half-dozen electronic, photonic, and optoelectronic programs he oversees, he also reveals what inspired him to give up the stable and secure job he held for 14 years before arriving at DARPA. “I had no doubt

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 ripple out. New companies. Follow-on investments. Chemical- and materials-based technologies for the Department of Defense … and perhaps one day for the public at large. Featured in the podcast are reflections form three of the program managers who have been stewards of the program, two research performers who helped make real the vision of Living Foundries, and even the sound of one potential Living Foundries product doing what it does best. 

  In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, John-Francis Mergen, a program manager since 2020 in the agency’s Information Innovation Office, 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 into that elemental component of the scientific enterprise. For his part, Mergen has spent a lot of time observing the complex ebbs and flows of data packets, which are mobile portions of information that race every which way through the internet and then get reassembled on your computer into a web page, a picture, or an email message. One of the first DARPA programs Mergen started to run last year aims to optimize the efficiency of packet traffic and management based on dynamic prioritization of information categories, such as text, voice or images, while preserving privacy and confidentiality for the sender and recip