Distinguished Seminar: DARPA's Valerie Browning

A virtual event featuring Dr. Valerie Browning, Director of DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO)

All dates for this event occur in the past.

The Ohio State University’s College of Engineering is delighted to welcome Dr. Valerie Browning, director of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for a virtual seminar. 

Dr. Dorota A. Grejner-Brzezinska, associate dean for research in Ohio State’s College of Engineering, and Dr. Richard Ridgway, director of Ohio State’s ElectroScience Laboratory, will host the event. 

The webinar will offer insight into the DARPA mission and opportunities for the academic community to approach and engage DARPA and DSO Program Managers with ideas and concepts that address current and/or anticipated future national security challenges. During her presentation, Dr. Browning will discuss the ecosystem DARPA seeks to foster to create science-based transformational change and innovative technologies, particularly in the Defense Sciences Office.

This presentation is free and open to the Ohio State community – faculty, researchers, staff, and students. 

To register, please visit https://go.osu.edu/seminar-30321.

Event Agenda

1:00 p.m. – Welcome from The Ohio State University and the College of Engineering

  • Dorota A. Grejner-Brzezinska, PhD
    Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering

  • Ayanna Howard, PhD
    Dean of the College of Engineering
  • Grace Wang, PhD
    Executive Vice President for Research, Innovation and Knowledge Enterprise, The Ohio State University
  • Richard Ridgway, PhD
    Director of the ElectroScience Laboratory

1:15-2:15 p.m. – Seminar

  • Valerie Browning, PhD
    Director, Defense Sciences Office (DSO), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

About Dr. Valerie Browning

Dr. Valerie Browning was named director of DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO) in December 2017. Dr. Browning has more than 30 years of experience in managing and executing defense-related research and development. Prior to her most recent DARPA appointment, Dr. Browning worked as an independent consultant providing subject matter expertise and strategic planning support to the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and other government clients in the areas of advanced materials and alternative energy. She also served as chief technology officer for HELM System Solutions, Inc., a woman-owned small research and development (R&D) business.

Dr. Browning was a program manager in DSO from 2000-2007, where she initiated and managed a diverse R&D portfolio in areas that included metamaterials, bio-magnetics, unmanned underwater vehicle energy storage, portable power, thermoelectric materials and others. Dr. Browning also worked as a research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory from 1984-2000 where her primary areas of research included thermoelectric materials, superconductors, magnetics, and magnetic oxide materials.

Dr. Browning earned a doctorate in physics from The Catholic University of America, a Master of Science degree in physics from the University of Maryland, and a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Virginia Tech.

Presentation Abstract 

Title: DARPA and the Defense Sciences Office:  Science in Service to National Security

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was established in 1958 to prevent strategic surprise by ensuring the U.S. remains at the forefront of the scientific and technological frontier.  To fulfill its mission, the Agency relies on a diverse community of performers to apply multi-disciplinary approaches to both advance knowledge through basic research and create innovative technologies that address current, emerging and future national security challenge problems through applied research.  As the Defense Department’s primary innovation engine, DARPA undertakes projects that are finite in duration but that create lasting revolutionary change related to national security as well as the broader science and technology community.

DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) identifies and pursues high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines and transforms them into important, new game-changing technologies for national security. Current DSO themes include frontiers in math, computation and design, limits of sensing and sensors, complex social systems, and anticipating capabilities for current and future threats.

This presentation will provide an introduction to the DARPA mission, information on how to work with DARPA and the Defense Sciences Office, and a description of DSO’s current research activities and interests.