Leadership

Russell Miller was named as the Director of IARPA in December 2025. Coming from a career in public service, he is committed to IARPA’s mission of delivering innovative capabilities to the Intelligence Community that provide an overwhelming technological advantage over our adversaries. As Director, he is proud to lead IARPA in its continued legacy of delivering capabilities to Intelligence Community mission users, and is leading IARPA’s transition within ODNI 2.0. IARPA is focused on accelerating the advancement and delivery of capabilities in advanced sensing and processing, applied AI, microelectronics, commercial space, open-source intelligence, and other priorities.

To strengthen IARPA’s technical stewardship role in the community, he is establishing IARPA as the authority for the U.S. Intelligence Community’s (USIC) advanced technology needs and removing barriers to deliver mission-relevant capabilities at speed. Director Miller has a strong sense of urgency and responsibility to solve some of the U.S.Government’s most difficult and complex challenges, and to deliver mission focused state-of-the art capabilities to the USIC.

Dr. Jack Cooper was named Acting Deputy Director of IARPA in July 2025. He rejoined IARPA in January 2025 as the Office Director for Analysis where he led the office he previously served as a Program Manager. Prior to returning to IARPA, Dr. Cooper was the Division Chief for Predictive & Forensic Analytics at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Research & Development Directorate. There, he consolidated algorithm development activities into larger strategic thrusts tightly aligned to NGA mission, significantly increasing the number of operational transitions. Dr. Cooper also served NGA as a Senior Staff Scientist, creating and executing programs to automate Motion GEOINT processing and preparing NGA for new data streams through prototyping and field experiments. As an IARPA Program Manager, Dr. Cooper led three programs focused on automating and scaling the Intelligence Community's ability to detect and characterize human activity in a variety of mediums. Dr. Cooper graduated from Clemson University in 2012 with both doctorate and master's degrees in mathematical sciences. He previously graduated from the University of Maryland in 2007 with a bachelors' degree in mathematics and government and politics.

Ashwini Deshpande was named Acting Director, Office of Analysis, in August 2025. She joined IARPA in January of 2022. Mrs. Deshpande focuses on areas of scientific research that includes computer vision, machine learning, and image processing. She is presently leading IARPA's efforts on the WRIVA  program that aims to develop algorithmic systems to create photorealistic, navigable site models using a highly limited corpus of imagery.Prior to joining IARPA, Mrs. Deshpande worked at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency from 2014 to 2019 where she served as a Systems Integrator and Technical Advisor in the Office of Special Programs and Research Directorate and assisted with the launching and management of new programs in Analytic Automation, Image and Video Processing, and Radar.Mrs. Deshpande graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999 with a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a Master’s degree in atmospheric science in 2000.

Dr. Mark Becker joined IARPA in July 2022. In his current assignment as a Program Manager, Dr. Becker focuses on topics related to privacy enhancing technologies, such as anonymous communication, secure multi-party computation, and identity management. He led IARPA's efforts on the SuperTools program that aims to develop tools to allow the design and simulation of digital superconductor electronic circuits.  

Before joining IARPA, Dr. Becker worked at Booz Allen Hamilton from 2007 to 2022 where he served as a chief scientist supporting clients in the Intelligence Community. Prior to that, he was a technical staff member at Los Alamos National Lab, the nation’s premier nuclear weapons lab.  

Dr. Becker graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2003 with a Ph.D. in mathematics.  

Dr. Becker is a former basketball player, having played in college at Arizona State University and at the professional level in various European leagues. He currently lives in Northern Virginia with his family.