Farnborough. 22 August 2018. Senior Scientist Sarah Rumbley is one of 50 promising, young researchers named a DARPA Riser as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s 60th Anniversary Symposium called D60. The DARPA Riser program identifies exceptional students, post doctorates, or other junior members of research teams with a special spark and drive to make a difference.

Next month, Senior Scientist Sarah Rumbley will be one of 50 promising, young researchers to participate as a DARPA Riser as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s 60th Anniversary Symposium called D60. The DARPA Riser program identifies the next generation of research talent with the potential to have an off-scale impact for the agency. The event will bring together the selected Risers with the entire DARPA technical team, including program managers, office directors and deputies, as well as Deputy Director Dr. Peter Highnam and Director Dr. Steven H. Walker.

The purpose of the DARPA Riser program is to identify exceptional students, post doctorates, or other junior members of research teams with a special spark and drive to make a difference. The program’s goal is to energize and engage the selected Risers so they think of DARPA first when they have world-changing ideas as their careers unfold, and to encourage them to consider serving as program managers with the agency in the future.

 “Sarah’s commitment to advance autonomy-related research for our nation is unparalleled,” said Caroline Richard, the Distributed Battle Management (DBM) program manager in the Autonomy, Control, and Estimation group for FAST Labs at BAE Systems. “She truly embodies all the characteristics necessary to be a highly successful researcher, including a deep passion for her field and a never-ending curiosity for what is possible. Our team is thrilled she has been selected by DARPA for this very prestigious recognition.”

 The DARPA Riser session will take place on September 5 just prior to the start of the DARPA D60 event. Risers will present a five-minute poster session to DARPA program managers for judging. From there, DARPA office directors and deputies will select the most exciting ten sessions to advance to the next round. Three Risers will then be selected to present their talks to the entire D60 audience on September 7.

 As a Senior Scientist at FAST Labs, the research and development arm of BAE Systems, Inc., Sarah is involved in ongoing autonomy research regarding the implementation of algorithms for multi-sensor, multi-target tracking, and data fusion in both centralized systems and distributed networks of platforms. Her poster session at the DARPA Riser session will focus on using probabilistic reasoning to make communications more efficient in highly constrained networks.