Voices from DARPA
77 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago -DARPA’s podcast series, "Voices from DARPA," offers a revealing and informative window on the minds of the Agency's program managers. In each episode, a program manager from one of DARPA’s six technical offices—Biological Technologies, Defense Sciences, Information Innovation, Microsystems Technology, Strategic Technology, and Tactical Technology—will discuss in informal and personal terms why they are at DARPA and what they are up to. The goal of "Voices from DARPA" is to share with listeners some of the institutional know-how, vision, process, and history that together make the “secret sauce” DARPA has been adding to the Nation’s innovation ecosystem for nearly 60 years. On another level, we at DARPA just wanted to share the pleasure we all have every day—in the elevator, in the halls, in our meeting rooms—as we learn from each other and swap ideas and strive to change what’s possible.
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Episodes
Episode 77: Meet DARPAConnect
March 28, 2024 12:50 - 18 minutes - 17.1 MBGood ideas can come from anywhere, but what is the best way to find them, or help them find you? In 2022, DARPA hit the road in pursuit of the answer. Comprising six regional events, DARPA Forward took the agency across the country to engage untapped talent and strengthen the nationwide innovation ecosystem. The event series offered a powerful lesson in breaking down barriers of entry in pursuit of national security breakthroughs. To sustain this momentum, DARPA launched DARPAConnect, ...
Episode 76: The Quantum Logician
February 29, 2024 14:09 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBIn this episode we hear from quantum physicist Dr. Mukund Vengalattore, a program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, who oversees a portfolio of fundamental research programs aimed at unlocking new quantum insights and overcoming challenges to enable revolutionary capabilities for defense. These include harnessing atoms and superconducting structures for novel sensing applications (imagine tiny, super-sensitive antennas, infrared detectors or gyroscopes that vastly outperform much l...
Episode 75: The Metamaterial Visionary
January 17, 2024 22:22 - 25 minutes - 23.5 MBWe usually think of materials based on our experience in the natural world. For example, something that’s light is usually fragile (like a feather) or something heavy is usually strong (like a brick). But what if we could engineer a material that had completely new characteristics that defied properties found in nature? Engineered materials, also known as metamaterials, allow us to do just that. DARPA Program Manager Dr. Rohith Chandrasekar in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office has led programs...
Episode 74: Young Faculty Award
November 21, 2023 15:01 - 15 minutes - 14.1 MBEstablished in 2006, the Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising academics in early-career research positions - particularly those without prior DARPA funding - and expose them to Department of Defense (DOD) needs and DARPA's mission to create and prevent technological surprise. The YFA program provides high-impact funding to researchers at U.S. institutions early in their careers to advance innovative research enabling transformative DOD capabilities. The long-...
Episode 73: The AI Cyber Challenge - CTF, Code, and Critical Infrastructure
October 20, 2023 12:35 - 23 minutes - 5 MBAhead of the AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) Open Track registration period, which begins later this year, this episode of Voices from DARPA features Perri Adams, DARPA’s program manager for the competition. Over the next two years, AIxCC will challenge teams to develop AI-driven systems to automatically find and correctly fix the critical code that underpins daily life. Adams shares the backstory for the AIxCC, discusses who she wants to compete (and why), and what’s at stake for cybersecurity. ...
Episode 72: Reinventing Microelectronics Manufacturing
September 29, 2023 18:45 - 23 minutes - 5 MBSupply chain disruptions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, among other issues, shined a bright light on the global reliance on microchips. The nationwide recognition underscored the need to strengthen the domestic microelectronics industry, including on-shore fabrication and next-generation research, development, and capabilities. Back in 2017, already recognizing that the microelectronics demand trajectory was straining both commercial and defense developments, DARPA launched the Electr...
Episode 71: The Quantum Mechanic
August 18, 2023 13:25 - 22 minutes - 5 MBIn popular culture, quantum is a descriptive term often added to various technical topics and projects to make them sound cool. But what is quantum mechanics, really, and how do we know whether quantum technologies will transform computing, communications, sensing, and a host of other fields? To find answers, join us for a new episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast series, where we hear from Dr. Joe Altepeter, a quantum physicist in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. Altepeter helps clarif...
Episode 70: Innovating How We Innovate
July 28, 2023 12:20 - 21 minutes - 5 MBThere are many ideas in the world, but truly good ones are few and far between – especially when it comes to breakthrough technologies that can change the course of history. Surfacing these types of ideas calls for a constant infusion of fresh perspectives and imagination. That’s why DARPA created the DARPA Innovation Fellowship, a two-year position for early career scientists and engineers. Fellows push the limits of existing technology by exploring new ideas for answering high-risk, high-...
Episode 69: Demystifying Deepfakes
June 16, 2023 15:26 - 19 minutes - 5 MBGenerative artificial intelligence has captured the world’s attention after recent advances in the commercial sector. Its ability to create deepfakes, or highly realistic multimedia, has turned a once highly specialized skill into something as easy as clicking a button. As a result, the threat of manipulated media –audio, images, video, and text – has increased while social media provides a ripe environment for viral content sharing. Though, not all media manipulations have the same real...
Episode 68: Space Manufacturing
May 18, 2023 07:00 - 19 minutes - 5 MBImagine you are going to space. There is a long list of items and supplies you definitely will need, but there is an even longer list of things you might need, depending on how your mission progresses. This includes known unknowns like fuel for unplanned maneuvering, replacement parts or tools, and a wide range of other products that could be useful, but may not be utilized. The current paradigm is to pack everything you might possibly need, but this approach is complex and logistically burd...
Episode 67: Wireless Power Beaming
April 20, 2023 07:00 - 12 minutes - 5 MBThis 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 tra...
Episode 66: How to Create AI Tech We Can Trust
March 16, 2023 07:00 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBAt 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 ...
Episode 65: A Sprint to Tomorrow, Powered by Teamwork
February 23, 2023 08:00 - 17 minutes - 16.5 MBIf 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 bee...
Episode 64: DARPA Triage Challenge
January 19, 2023 08:00 - 9 minutes - 8.48 MBFor 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 triag...
Episode 63: So Many Maps, So Little Time: Using AI to Locate Critical Minerals
December 16, 2022 17:07 - 14 minutes - 13.5 MBIn 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 o...
Episode 62: The Model (& Simulation) Researcher
November 17, 2022 08:00 - 14 minutes - 13.7 MBFor 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 fo...
Episode 61: Manta Ray - Unleashing Robotic Undersea Endurance
October 20, 2022 07:00 - 13 minutes - 12.2 MBDARPA’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 ...
Episode 60: The Neuroethicist
September 22, 2022 13:32 - 14 minutes - 13.6 MBFor 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...
Episode 59: DARPA Forward
August 11, 2022 07:00 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MBFor 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 Lu...
Episode 58: The Cryptoprivacist
July 21, 2022 09:00 - 17 minutes - 16.2 MBIn 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 ...
Episode 57: Unmasking Misinformation and Manipulation
June 16, 2022 09:00 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBIn 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 o...
Episode 56: The Future of Food - Meals from Microbes
May 26, 2022 14:00 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBDid 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 ...
Episode 55: Sensorized Prosthetics
April 04, 2022 10:00 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBIn 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 mor...
Episode 54: Climate Tipping Points
March 14, 2022 12:00 - 18 minutes - 16.9 MBIn 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 disastr...
Episode 53: So, You Want to Become a DARPA Program Manager?
January 12, 2022 14:41 - 46 minutes - 63.7 MBIn 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 th...
Episode 52: The Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative
December 01, 2021 06:00 - 27 minutes - 37.7 MBIn 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 enterin...
Episode 51: The Cybersecurity Sleuth
November 02, 2021 11:42 - 40 minutes - 56.2 MBIn 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 se...
Episode 50: The Photonicist
October 12, 2021 13:10 - 36 minutes - 50.6 MBIn 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,...
Episode 49: A Decade of Living Foundries
September 15, 2021 12:00 - 20 minutes - 27.8 MBThis 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 r...
Episode 48: The Inner-Machine Therapist
August 19, 2021 12:58 - 43 minutes - 59.5 MBIn 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 ...
Episode 47: The Life Saver
July 26, 2021 13:20 - 46 minutes - 63.5 MBIn 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 a...
Episode 46: The Jet Packer
June 30, 2021 15:54 - 30 minutes - 42.6 MBVoices 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 ...
Episode 45: Ushering Microelectronics into Its Next Era
June 08, 2021 11:14 - 31 minutes - 43.3 MBIn 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 mic...
Episode 44: Sounds of Innovation 3
May 24, 2021 20:25 - 11 minutes - 16.5 MBGo 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...
Episode 43: The Sky Master
April 26, 2021 13:21 - 34 minutes - 47 MBVoices 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 a...
Episode 42: The Infrared Visionary
April 05, 2021 13:11 - 34 minutes - 47.3 MBIn 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, includin...
Episode 41: The AI Tutor
March 11, 2021 13:26 - 35 minutes - 49.4 MBIn 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—over...
Episode 40: Sounds of Innovation 2
March 01, 2021 15:07 - 7 minutes - 9.71 MBWelcome 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 o...
Episode 39: The What-if Chemist
February 02, 2021 11:54 - 43 minutes - 59.3 MBIn 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. Anothe...
Episode 38: The Oceanic Defender
January 13, 2021 11:28 - 39 minutes - 54.6 MBIn 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 mos...
Episode 37: Sounds of Innovation 1
December 21, 2020 19:08 - 6 minutes - 8.51 MBWelcome 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.
Episode 36: The Hypersonic Materialist
December 01, 2020 18:19 - 37 minutes - 52 MBIn 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 h...
Episode 35: Maxwell's Disciple
November 05, 2020 18:44 - 32 minutes - 44.9 MBIn 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, powe...
Episode 34: The Orbital Optician
October 16, 2020 14:44 - 27 minutes - 37.5 MBIn 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-siz...
Episode 33: The Verification Virtuoso
September 23, 2020 15:24 - 38 minutes - 53.1 MBIn 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 c...
Episode 32: The Opportunity Hunter
September 02, 2020 15:22 - 49 minutes - 67.5 MBIn 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 su...
Episode 31: Science 2.0
August 17, 2020 13:24 - 34 minutes - 47.4 MBIn 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 Def...
Episode 30: The Sensor Sorcerer
July 07, 2020 19:04 - 34 minutes - 47.6 MBIn 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 ...
Episode 29: The Light and Matter Maestro
June 23, 2020 16:42 - 32 minutes - 45.1 MBIn 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 signal...
Episode 28: Swarm Commander
June 11, 2020 17:30 - 32 minutes - 44.3 MBIn 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 collabora...