From Blockbuster to Biotech Breakthroughs - Episode 91

It started with a movie. It led to a mission. In this episode of "Voices from DARPA," we sit down with Michael Feasel, Ph.D., a program manager in the Biological Technologies Office, to discuss his extraordinary journey to the forefront of American innovation. From a pre-med student who found his calling in an inorganic chemistry class, to career inspiration from a Nicolas Cage film, Mike's path was anything but conventional. He shares how a chance Thanksgiving conversation launched his career in chemical and biological defense, and how he was later recruited to DARPA. Mike offers a unique look inside the agency, detailing the challenges of managing programs far outside his initial expertise and the incredible impact of fostering world-changing ideas. Discover the story behind his Protean program, which aims to revolutionize how we counter chemical threats, and hear his reflections on what makes DARPA a one-of-a-kind place for innovators.Related Content:DEVCOM Chemical Biological CenterABCHermesRIDDL

What happens after you've worked on projects that could change the world?We go beyond the cutting-edge technology and "secret labs" to explore the most vital part of DARPA's mission: its people.Six former Program Managers discuss their experiences and what comes after a tour of duty at the agency.They share their initial anxieties, the challenges of working on projects outside their expertise, and the unique culture of support and urgency that defines DARPA.Discover how they transitioned from the agency back to the private and public sectors, and how their time at DARPA continues to shape their careers and the future of technologywww.darpa.mil/careers

The AI Cyber Challenge, AIxCC, marks a pivotal inflection point for cyber defense.Numerous attacks in recent years have illuminated the ability for malicious cyber actors to exploit vulnerable software that runs everything from financial systems and public utilities to the health care ecosystem.AIxCC Competitors successfully demonstrated the ability of novel autonomous systems using AI to secure the open-source software that underlies critical infrastructure, with winners revealed at DEF CON 33.Hear from DARPA and ARPA-H on the game-changing results the competitors achieved.And although the competition is over, the challenge continues. All seven finalist teams’ CRSs have been made available as open-source software under a license approved by the Open Source Initiative.Hear from teams on their experiences through the competition and how they are moving their systems to the real world.LINKS:Competition websiteFinalist teamsOpen source archiveInformation Innovation OfficeARPA-H Resilient Systems Office

The Service Chiefs Fellows connect their operational insights with potential DARPA breakthroughs.We explore DARPA’s Service Chiefs Fellowship Program (SCFP), a 12-week immersive experience that brings together participants from various backgrounds across the Department of Defense (DOD) and other U.S. agencies. Its dual core purposes are to educate future leaders from military services and other agencies, helping them "infuse some of the DARPA magic into their home base," and to inform DARPA program managers and performers, many of whom lack military or government backgrounds, about the mission and the needs of current warfighters. This blending of ideas fosters new connections and can even lead participants to return to the agency, as exemplified by Rob McHenry, DARPA's current Deputy Director and the agency’s first Service Chiefs Fellow.As part of DARPA’s broader strategy to engage the U.S. military and other U.S. government partners, the SCFP helps ensure vital ideas take root and flourish where they are most needed.Service Chiefs Fellowship Program webpageBiological Technologies Office (BTO)Information Innovation Office (I2O)Mission-Integrated Network Control (MINC)Dr. Michael Feasel (BTO program manager)Commercial Strategy Office

RACER enables off-road vehicles to travel autonomously and reliably at high speeds over cross-country terrain, enabling new capabilities for our warfighters. Since the DARPA Grand Challenge kicked off more than 20 years ago, the Department of Defense has been very publicly invested in creating the capabilities necessary for ground vehicles to travel autonomously in areas without roads, signs, maps, or even GPS signals. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Stuart Young, who leads the Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program, which is creating platform agnostic autonomy capable of operating in complex, mission-relevant, off-road environments that are significantly more unpredictable than on-road conditions. We also speak with Dr. Trent Mills, a Colonel in the U.S. Army and special assistant to the DARPA director. Mills shares a warfighter perspective on what the Army has learned from RACER, and how autonomy is being integrated into the way the Army prepares and thinks about future engagements.  Check out videos from earlier experiments to better envision what testing looks like in the field: RACER Experiment 4 – Heavy Platform Highlight Video RACER Experiment 4 – Cockpit view of an autonomous off-road run in TX RACER Experiment 3 – Highlight video In the interview, Young shares: The importance of real-world experimentation and testing How the RACER program has evolved over its time  How performers on RACER have spun out innovative companies to accelerate bringing new capabilities to the warfighter The confluence of technologies that have made off-road autonomy viable What edge case scenarios RACER is still exploring and trying to solve, and what success means for the program 

What do smart bandages, ocean-powered sensors, and quantum biology have in common? They’re all part of Dr. Leonard Tender’s work at DARPA. On the latest episode of Voices from DARPA, he discusses his fascinating research in the Biological Technologies Office and how these innovations are shaping the future of national security.Bioelectronics for Tissue Regeneration (BETR)BioElectronics to Sense and Treat (BEST)ReSourceBioLogical Undersea Energy (BLUE)

Microelectronics are the foundation of technology today, but what about tomorrow? Ten years from now? Twenty?Real breakthroughs don’t come from simply refining what already exists—they come from reimagining what’s possible. In this episode, Dr. Whitney Mason, Director of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), takes us inside the research that is pushing microelectronics beyond conventional thinking. She explores the potential of organic circuits to revolutionize computing, not by replacing existing technology, but by opening entirely new frontiers in electronics design. From assessing the potential of quantum computing to novel material innovations that could redefine performance and efficiency, MTO is driving advancements that go far beyond conventional chipmaking.Dr. Mason also shares her perspective on how DARPA’s risk-taking culture enables groundbreaking discoveries, and why the speed of innovation is critical to maintaining U.S. technological advantage. She discusses MTO’s focus on next-generation manufacturing approaches that integrate best-of-breed materials to achieve disruptive performance leaps. By moving beyond traditional microelectronics and embracing unconventional ideas, MTO is working to create the future of technology—one where microelectronics aren’t just smaller and faster, but smarter, more resilient, and capable of things we have yet to fully envision.Show notes and links:Dr. Whitney MasonMicrosystems Technology OfficeVoices from DARPA Episode 42: The Infrared VisionaryVoices from DARPA Episode 72: The Quantum MechanicQBI: Quantum Benchmarking Initiative AMME: Additive Manufacturing of MicrosystEmsNGMM: Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing  Episode 85 posting date: January 31, 2025

U.S. national security depends on an aging IT infrastructure that supports a vast network of systems spanning the globe. Over the past three decades, traditional security practices—like virus scanning, patching software, and intrusion detection systems—have led to a landscape of vulnerable systems. The Department of Defense is no exception, where legacy IT systems and even the most advanced fighter jets and weapons platforms are susceptible to exploitable weaknesses.But this doesn’t have to continue being our reality.In this episode of Voices from DARPA, we explore the agency’s groundbreaking work on revolutionizing software development. At the forefront of this transformation is the use of formal methods—a powerful, mathematical approach that ensures robust security and guarantees the absence of vulnerabilities in software systems. Join experts from DARPA and its strategic partners as they explore how these cutting-edge tools are reshaping the security landscape and paving the way for a future where vulnerabilities are not just minimized but provably absent—across the U.S. military and beyond.Show Notes·      Current DARPA programs leveraging formal methods: o  AI Quantified (AIQ)o  Assured Autonomyo  Assured Micropatching (AMP)o  Automated Rapid Certification of Software (ARCOS)o  Intrinsic Cognitive Security (ICS)o  Pipelined Reasoning of Verifiers Enabling Robust Systems (PROVERS)o  Provably Weird Network Deployment and Detection (PWND2) o  Safe Documents (SafeDocs)o  Verified Security and Performance Enhancement of Large Legacy Software (V-SPELLS)·      High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) overview, research paper, and Little Bird demo video·      National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Workshop on Secure Building Blocks for Trustworthy Systems (segment at 7:23:49)·      Voices from DARPA Episode 51: The Cybersecurity Sleuth, featuring former DARPA program manager, Dr. Sergey Bratus·      DARPA Forward: Engineering Secure Information Systems video presentation

What characteristics make a person trustworthy? Under what circumstances would a person delegate life or death decisions to artificial intelligence (AI)? Does it matter that AI systems reflect trustworthy humans’ decision-making preferences, morals, and ethics? If so, what characteristics are most important?These are some of the fundamental questions DARPA researchers are exploring for the In the Moment (ITM) program, which aims to support the development of algorithms that are trusted to independently make decisions in difficult domains, particularly in significant trauma events such as battlefield triage.DARPA’s research has identified the need for fundamentally different approaches to advance AI technology to a place where we’re willing to trust it and not be foolish to do so. Continuing themes from our mini-series on ELSI – ethical, legal, and societal implications of new technologies and capabilities – we meet with DARPA’s ITM program manager, Dr. Patrick Shafto, and the ITM performers and ELSI advisors, who break down how they’re tackling the fundamental question of alignment in the context of human decision-makers and autonomous decision-making tools.In case you missed them, check out our previous ELSI series episodes at the following links:Episode 79: Integrating ELSIEpisode 78: Introducing ELSIOur special thanks to the following ITM performers and advisors for their contributions to this episode (in order of their appearance):·        Alice Leung, RTX BBN·        Joseph Cohn, SoarTech·        Matthew Molineaux, Parallax Advanced Research·        Arslan Basharat, Kitware Inc.·        Jennifer McVay, CACI·        Dave Cotting, Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)·        Sarah Daly, IDA·        Lauren Diaz, University of Maryland Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS)·        Ellie Tyler, ARLIS

Accomplishing DARPA’s mission of creating and preventing strategic surprise is as much a business challenge as it is a technology challenge.In this episode, team members from DARPA’s Contracts Management Office – Office Director Effie Fragogiannis and Deputy Director Catherine Stevens, along with Senior Advisor Scott Ulrey – explore what it takes to innovate contracting processes and mechanisms to enable the development of breakthrough technologies at the speed of relevance.From DARPA’s pioneering work with Other Transactions, to fast-pitch proposals, to the exploration of previously unrealized authorities, hear how the agency is breaking down the barriers of government contracting, providing companies a clearer path to the national security mission.Links:Acquisition Innovation Collaborative Disruption at DoD – Kathleen Hicks – American Dynamism SummitAcquisition Innovation: From Other Transactions to Fast-Pitch ProposalsOffice of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Other Transactions GuideDARPAConnect