Lisa Porter, the first and only director of way-out research for the American intelligence community, is stepping down after more than four years on the job.
Porter, a Stanford-trained physicist, ran the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or "Iarpa," since its inception in 2008. She announced her retirement to her colleagues on March 30.
"I reluctantly accepted Lisa’s resignation," retired Gen. James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, said in a statement issued to Danger Room. "The hallmark of Lisa's leadership has been her ability to bring to bear the talents of our nation’s best scientific thinkers on our most difficult scientific problems.”
Modeled after Darpa -- and often referred to as "Darpa for spies" -- the agency never had the public breakthroughs of its military successor; Iarpa never put any robotic cheetahs or mind-controlled machines on display, the way Darpa did. But under Porter's leadership, Iarpa did pursue far-reaching investigations into everything from crowdsourcing to quantum computing, all in the name of providing "the U.S. with an overwhelming intelligence advantage over our future adversaries," as the agency repeatedly put it.
Iarpa used videogames to train intelligence analysts, tried to amplify peoples' "pre-conscious human assessment of trustworthiness," looked for ways to find foes through their snapshots, and started the establishment of a massive, cross-cultural database of metaphors. The blue-sky projects gave Iarpa a unique niche in America's spook community, a place that, veterans routinely grouse, is consumed by the crisis of the day.
"High-risk, high-payoff research -- that's a very novel concept for the intelligence community," she told Danger Room in an unpublished 2009 interview. "We're free from the day-to-day urgency, from the immediate needs. So we've got an ability to focus on the long-term."
Porter started her government career as a Darpa program manager, before becoming the head of NASA's aeronautics division. Bringing that Darpa-esque spirit to the intelligence world wasn't always easy. Not long after Iarpa was cobbled togetherfrom research groups within the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Porter faced an exodus of talent. The old guard just wasn't used to the Darpa combination of far-off end goals with very measurable steps to those goals along the way. Nor did they appreciate her in-the-weeds approach to managing research projects.
But eventually, the agency appeared to find its footing. The question is: Where will it go, without its founding director?
"She’ll be tough to replace," Clapper acknowledged.
It's not clear what Porter's next step will be. But it's worth noting that the director of Darpa recently stepped down. Porter has repeatedly been mentioned as a potential successor.
