This event has been cancelled and will be rescheduled.
Breakthrough Technologies for National Security
Arati Prabhakar,
Director,
DARPA
This seminar series is open to all faculty, staff, students, research, and community members.
Arati Prabhakar, Ph.D., is director of the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Dr.
Prabhakar has spent her career investing in world-class engineers and
scientists to create new technologies and businesses. Her first service
to national security
started in 1986 when she joined DARPA as a program manager. She
initiated and managed programs in advanced semiconductor technology and
flexible manufacturing, as well as demonstration projects to insert new
semiconductor technologies into military systems.
As the founding director of DARPA’s Microelectronics Technology Office,
she led a team of program managers whose efforts spanned these areas,
as well as optoelectronics, infrared imaging and nanoelectronics.
In
1993, President William Clinton appointed Dr. Prabhakar director of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, where she led the
3,000-person organization
in its work with companies across multiple industries.
Dr.
Prabhakar moved to Silicon Valley in 1997, first as chief technology
officer and senior vice president at Raychem, and later vice president
and then president of Interval
Research. From 2001 to 2011, she was a partner with U.S. Venture
Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm. Dr. Prabhakar identified
and served as a director for startup companies with the promise of
significant growth. She worked with entrepreneurs focused
on energy and efficiency technologies, consumer electronics components,
and semiconductor process and design technologies.
Dr.
Prabhakar received her Doctor of Philosophy in applied physics and
Master of Science in electrical engineering from the California
Institute of Technology. She received
her Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Texas Tech
University. She began her career as a Congressional Fellow at the Office
of Technology Assessment.
Dr.
Prabhakar has served in recent years on the National Academies' Science
Technology and Economic Policy Board, the College of Engineering
Advisory Board at the University
of California, Berkeley, and the red team of DARPA's Defense Sciences
Research Council. In addition, she chaired the Efficiency and Renewables
Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Prabhakar is a
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, a Texas Tech Distinguished Engineer, and a
Caltech Distinguished Alumna.
