IARPA taps Dixon as deputy director
Stacey Dixon, most recently a deputy director at NGA, has significant Capitol Hill experience.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has tapped Stacey Dixon, an intelligence official with significant Capitol Hill experience, as its new deputy director.
Dixon, who previously oversaw geospatial R&D at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, has also served as NGA's liaison to Congress and as a staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
This is the second recent leadership appointment at IARPA, the intelligence community's R&D shop; Director of National Intelligence James Clapper named biotech wonk Jason Matheny to head the organization last August.
Dixon's work with satellite-derived intelligence includes a stint at the National Reconnaissance Office, where she led the Science Division at NRO from 2003 to 2007.
IARPA's research interests over the last year or so have included quantum computing, "insider threats," and predicting computer hacks via a program called Cyber-attack Automated Unconventional Sensor Environment.
The research organization has in recent years increasingly focused on anticipatory intelligence, which might be described as the science of predicting unpredictable events. Dixon's background as a mechanical engineer, with a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology, could help the cause.