Stefanie Tompkins is an American geologist. She was the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

) from 2021 to 2025. In February 2025, the Colorado School of Mines announced that she would be its next Provost, starting May 12, 2025.

Biography

Tompkins was born on January 21, 1967, on a U.S. Army base in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, where her father, a career

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

officer, was serving. Her mother is a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. The family spent time in Japan and Taiwan before moving to Hawaii. She attended the ʻIolani high school in Honolulu, graduating in 1983.Stefanie Tompkins, LinkedIn biography
/ref> Tompkins graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1987 with a degree in

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

and

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...

. She then served as an Army Intelligence officer from 1987 to 1991. She returned to the study of geology this time at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

from 1993 to 1997 where she was awarded a master's degree and a doctorate while working under the guidance of Carle M. Pieters. While she was studying at Brown, Tompkins also worked as an associate scientist at SETS Technology in Mililani in Hawaii from 1993 until in 1996, she became a Senior Staff Scientist at SAIC, where she studied the geology of

Moon rock Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth ...

s, with funding from

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

. In 2007 Tompkins joined DARPA's Strategic Technology Office as a program manager. In the next decade, according to DARPA, she held many roles at the agency, including a stint as director of the Defense Sciences Office. In 2017 she took up the temporary position of acting deputy director of DARPA. In February 2018, she left DARPA to become vice president for research and technology transfer at

Colorado School of Mines The Colorado School of Mines (Mines) is a public research university in Golden, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1874, the school offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, with a focus on ener ...

, spending three years there. Regarding her decision to leave DARPA for Mines, Tompkins told an interviewer: According to Tompkins, her time at Mines was a valuable preparation for understanding "critical mineral supply chains" and the role of academia "in the national security ecosystem".

DARPA leadership

In 2016, Tompkins described to

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

faculty DARPA's mission: "to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security" in order to prevent, or to create, "strategic surprise". Tompkins was on the list of

President Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 and re ...

's first political appointees to

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

positions, released January 19, 2021. ''

Air Force Magazine The Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) is an independent, 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) non-profit, professional military association for the United States Air Force and United States Space Force. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, it ...

'' noted that this would be the "third recent shuffle" of DARPA leadership. Former director Victoria Coleman resigned the directorship the day after, having served for only four months in the position. The position of DARPA director does not require Senate confirmation. On March 15, 2021, Tompkins became DARPA's 23rd director.

References

External links

"Statement by Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Submitted to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense" (April 13, 2021)

Staff page at DARPA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tompkins, Stefanie DARPA directors Biden administration personnel Princeton University alumni Brown University alumni American geologists Military personnel from Hawaii Living people 21st-century American earth scientists 21st-century American women scientists United States Army officers 21st-century American women civil servants 1967 births