Stephen Winchell (Past Speaker)

Stephen is currently a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). He has a passion for creating and implementing solutions to complex problems by engaging them end-to-end: from physical laws and raw data to operations, system dynamics, and strategy. A 2005 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he became a nuclear engineer and served aboard a fast-attack submarine in the Pacific and as a faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the United States Naval Academy while on active duty. As a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserves Stephen served at US Cyber Command and the Office of Naval Research as well as deploying to East Africa in support of counter-terror operations. Formerly at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, his work has spanned submarines and unmanned vehicles, radar, sonar, advanced sensor and weapon systems, computer network operations, and biometrics. Stephen holds an B.S. in Physics and M.S. degrees in Applied Physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He is a native Spanish speaker and grew up in Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Colombia.