Rob McHenry

Rob McHenry is the acting director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He rejoined DARPA in September 2022 after serving as founder and chief executive officer of Bright Silicon Technologies, an optical microdevice manufacturing company. Rob’s career has centered around advanced technology development in the public and private sectors, from startups to large organizations.  He started his career as a nuclear submarine officer, held previous roles as a DARPA technical contractor and program manager, served as the COO of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and founded two companies.