| abstract | - Regina E. Dugan (born March 19, 1963) is an American inventor and businesswoman. She served as the 19th Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She was appointed to that position on July 20, 2009 and was the first female DARPA director. In March 2012, she left her position to take an executive role at Google. From 1996 to 2000, Dugan served as a program manager at DARPA where she directed a portfolio of programs including the "Dog’s Nose" program, which focused on the development of an advanced, field-portable system for detecting the explosive content of land mines. In 1999, she was named DARPA Program Manager of the Year and, in 2000, was awarded the Bronze deFleury medal by the Army Engineer Regiment. In the award citation, Lieutenant General Ballard stated that "through strength of will, she carried disheartened experimenters past points of discouragement and led them to solve seemingly impossible problems. In the highest leadership traditions, she acted as coach, mentor, cheerleader, and taskmaster to achieve the program goals." Other awards include the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Exceptional Service and the Award for Outstanding Achievement. Dugan led a counterterrorism task force for the Deputy Secretary of Defense in 1999 and, from 2001 to 2003, served as a special advisor to the Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army. She has participated in studies for the Defense Science Board, Army Science Board, National Research Council, and the Science Foundation, and sat on the Naval Research Advisory Committee and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Technology Panel. In 2005, Dugan Ventures founded RedXDefense, LLC, a privately held company devoted to innovative solutions for combating explosive threats, where she also served as President and CEO. Before leaving DARPA, Dugan co-founded Dugan Ventures, a niche investment firm, where she was also President and CEO. Dugan obtained her doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Virginia Tech. She is the sole inventor or co-inventor on multiple patents and patents pending and the co-author of Engineering Thermodynamics, 1996. She has appeared at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED), conference CNN, the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, and The AAAS Science Report; has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Prism, Forbes, Science News, among others; and she has delivered keynote remarks at events as diverse as All Things Digital (D9), FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit, e.g., AIA Board of Governor’s meeting, Defense Manufacturing Conference, and SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing. In 2011, she was named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine.
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