Trump administration picks new DARPA director
The Trump administration has tapped Stephen Winchell to head the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DefenseScoop has learned.
DARPA, one of the Pentagon’s premier R&D organizations, aims to create “technological surprise” and game-changing capabilities for the U.S. national security community. It has been credited with aiding major technological breakthroughs, including precision weapons, stealth technology, the internet and GPS, among others.
The agency has six technical offices overseeing biological technologies, defense sciences, information innovation, microsystems technology, strategic technology and tactical technology.
Winchell is coming to DARPA from the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, where he served as the AI and autonomy portfolio leader.
Other high-tech organizations where he’s held leadership or technical roles include chief engineer with the Defense Department’s Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team (Project Maven), Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), and program manager at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
Winchell is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and served as a nuclear engineer in the activity-duty submarine community. He currently holds the rank of commander in the Navy Reserve.
His academic background includes a B.S. in physics and an M.S. degree in applied physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, as well as an M.S. degree in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
He’s expected to officially take the helm at DARPA on May 19.
Winchell will take over for Rob McHenry, who has been serving as DARPA’s acting director in the early months of the second Trump administration. Stefanie Tompkins led DARPA during the Biden administration.
