Duane Blackburn Email & Phone Number

Charlottesville, Va, Us

The Center for Data-Driven Policy brings objective, evidence-based, nonpartisan insights to government policymaking. We do not lobby, take political positions, or presuppose outcomes. Rather, we enable the policy community to leverage the experiences, insights and models our ~10k employees generate (through the FFRDCs we operate and other activities in the national interest) so that policy decisions are evidence-based, actionable, and effective.

The MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit company that works across the government, through its FFRDCs and public-private partnerships, to tackle challenges to the safety, stability, and well-being of our nation. I predominantly worked in the Office of the CTO where I coordinated corporate-wide transformation activities, established the MITRE Challenge program, enhanced the strategic approach to our independent research program, and led MITRE’s input to EOP policy bodies. I also helped guide MITRE’s support to the 2016 presidential transition and in establishing MITRE’s new Strategic Engagement & Partnerships office.

The Federal Identity Forum (FedID) has been the U.S. Government’s annual identity conference since 1995. The mission: to bring together identity experts to exchange information and enhance public-private collaboration to solve the federal government’s toughest identity challenges and help ensure a vibrant identity community. I coordinate activities of the interagency & public-private FedID Planning Committee.

The Polaris Council’s mission is to advise GAO’s Science, Technology Assessment and Analytics (STAA) team on emerging S&T issues as they pertain to technology assessment and foresight topics and practices, and help ensure this work is sound, sophisticated, and useful to Congress and the public. The Council achieves this mission by providing long-term, multi-dimensional, and mutually-beneficial working relationships between STAA and leading science and technology (S&T) experts. Members use their deep domain expertise to help shape how STAA initiates and conducts its technology assessment and foresight work and advise on emerging or emergent S&T topics and issues that may need to be brought before the Congress to better support it in the furtherance of a more proactive and evidence-based policymaking posture.

Virginia Tech's ECE Department is not only one of the country's largest, but also consistently ranks in the top 1% of accredited ECE degree programs. I'm honored to not only be an alumni, but to serve on the Department's Advisory Board. We've worked to update the Department's Program Educational Objectives, and provided advice to the department head as he leads a transdisciplinary team managing a 5-year NSF grant to transform undergraduate electrical engineering education, and revamped graduate degree programs to support expansion in NOVA.

OSTP is an office within the Executive Office of the President, charged with coordinating federal S&T efforts, advising the President, and leading collaboration with the international S&T community. In this senior-level, non-political, position, I was responsible for the USG's identity management and homeland security S&T enterprises. My work can be grouped into two broad categories: first, to lead the coordination of the executive branch's S&T activities on priority topics for the administration (biometrics, identity management, forensic science, explosives, human factors and overall homeland security S&T strategy) through the National Science and Technology Council; second, to serve as the primary S&T policy official on operational policy activities of the White House on all identity and homeland security matters (outside CBRN), such as Assistant Secretary-level committees of the HSC and NSC. Both categories required strategic engagements, senior-level relationship management, thought leadership, political acumen, a solid technical foundation, understanding of operational and financial issues, and consensus building. Representative Example: I led all federal government and public-private efforts in biometric technologies; to include research, testing, standards, outreach, and operational policy. I developed and managed a cross-agency federal team of over 200 technologists, operational practitioners, policy officials, and political appointees by developing strategic directions, working relationships to obtain consensus throughout the federal biometrics enterprise, developing subordinate teams and identifying their goals and timelines, developing partnerships with the private sector and academia, and providing oversight of the teams' execution. Together, we developed federal biometric SMEs, advanced technology, established privacy practices, integrated new capabilities into operational systems, and created a construct for interoperability on KST data.

The FBI's Operational Technology Division (OTD) develops and deploys technology-based solutions to enable and enhance the bureau's intelligence, national security, and law enforcement operations. OTD is staffed with a wide array of highly-skilled and multi-disciplined agents, engineers, electronic technicians, forensic examiners, and analysts who support the FBI's most significant investigations and national security operations with advanced electronic surveillance, digital forensics, technical surveillance, tactical operations, and communications capabilities.I was hired to change the biometric culture of the Bureau by introducing the potential of new biometric modalities to operational entities, while ensuring they would eventually be used in appropriate ways. I gathered requirements and established a research and testing program to provide new biometric capabilities, coordinated all Department of Justice S&T-focused biometric activities, and represented the Department in White House policy bodies (at the direction of the Attorney General’s Science Advisor). I served as the DOJ’s representative on the National Science and Technology Council (equivalent to a detailee to the Office of Science and Technology Policy) from 03/2004 – 11/2006.

The mission of this office was to develop and deploy technology that aids disrupting, deterring and denying the flow of drugs, people, information, money and weapons related to illegal drug trafficking and narcoterrorism. The office coordinated all of the DoD's work in these areas, and collaborated with other federal agencies under the policy oversight of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. I was fully responsible for all elements of my portion of the program, to include customer needs analysis and associated identification of research priorities and target outcomes; developing and managing staff, budgets, and contracts; delivering products of high technical quality on time and within budget; technology demonstration and transition.I managed research and transition efforts in numerous technologies: tagging/tracking/locating, data mining, visual analytics, biometrics, drug and explosives detection, less than lethal interdiction technologies, border screening and surveillance, and law enforcement tech in general.• In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I led public-private teams that provided strategic planning and consulting to the Departments of Transportation and (later) Homeland Security on personnel and cargo screening options. These recommendations provided the foundation for TSA’s and US-VISIT’s initial screening strategies.• Project manager of the first statistically-relevant evaluation of commercial biometric technology, which served as the model for subsequent biometric technology evaluations for nearly a decade.• Project manager of the first trials of satellite communications and tracking technologies for the US Border Patrol. Briefed and demonstrated the technologies to the INS Director and Attorney General.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Institute is charged with investing public funds to develop knowledge that will reduce crime, enhance public safety, and improve the administration of justice. As a part-time detailee, I served as the DOJ's primary liaison to the DoD research community. My focus was to identify DoD-developed technologies that held potential utility for state and local law enforcement agencies (LEAs). I sponsored demonstrations and then led efforts to transition the technologies into operational use by LEAs. I also provided support to NIJ’s sensors technology program, improved their biometrics program, and helped establish a corrections technology research program. I was a frequent conference speaker and led several interagency workshops.

Ms, Electrical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team Research Assistantship on power storage and transmission Teaching Assistantship.

Bs, Electrical Engineering