Leveraging research for the intelligence community

Kathleen Fisher, Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science, has been appointed to an ad hoc committee on research and development by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The newly-appointed committee will examine the ways in which the intelligence community may leverage future research and development (R&D) ecosystems in the U.S. The committee will craft a peer-reviewed report that will investigate the evolution of R&D ecosystems and the implications for the national intelligence community. The group will identify elements of the intelligence community that could be strengthened to ensure that the intelligence community’s needs are included in future government and private sector R&D agendas.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is the United States' joint scientific national academy. The national academies provide expertise and advice on some of the most challenging questions faced by the country and the world today. Their work influences public opinion, helps build policies backed by science and technology, and advances the pursuit of scientific, engineering, and medical knowledge.

Fisher joined the School of Engineering in 2011 as a professor within the Department of Computer Science. She has served as department chair since 2016. Her research centers on advancing the theory and practice of programming languages and on applying ideas from the programming language community to the problem of ad hoc data management. The focus of her work has been in domain-specific languages to facilitate programming with massive amounts of ad hoc data. Recently, she has been exploring synergies between machine learning and programming languages and studying how to apply advances in programming languages to the problem of building more secure systems.

Learn more about the Intelligence Community Studies Board committee, which appointed this new committee.