Dr. Lisa Costa
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer
U.S. Space Force
Dr. Lisa A. Costa, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the incoming Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of United States Space Force. She has served the last three years as Director, Communications Systems and Chief Information Officer for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. She is responsible for developing and executing SOF’s digital transformation strategy as well as managing the command's $1.2B annual information technology portfolio. Dr. Costa is also responsible for operating and maintaining USSOCOM's global network and systems providing no fail support to more than 90,000 special operations personnel and enablers.
Dr. Costa previously served as the Senior Director of Innovation and Technology at Engility Corporation where she brought big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to client verticals. She served as the Vice President of Intelligence and Chief Scientist at PlanetRisk, a global leader in 365/24/7 real-time predictive risk analytics. She brought progressive leadership to complex and sensitive problems facing nations and global Fortune 500 companies. She is an expert in ubiquitous technical surveillance and tradecraft. She was formerly the Director of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) and Violent Extremism at MITRE where she chaired the MITRE Corporate CWMD/Counterterrorism Council and led projects for the nation. Before that, Dr. Costa was the Executive Director of Integration and the Enterprise Systems Engineer for MITRE’s National Security Center responsible for integrating sponsor outcomes across various missions, agencies, and programs. She provided executive strategic planning for business operations and advancing the Center's $1.2B business base. She advised HASC and SASC staffers on emerging science and technology. She advised new presidential administrations on emerging global risk and opportunities.
As a member of the Defense Science Board on numerous Task Forces and Summer Studies, Dr. Costa helped shape the US model for homeland security, special operations’ role in countering terrorism, developed novel approaches to WMD early warning, and championed the use of publicly available information for great power competition. Dr. Costa was MITRE’s Chief Scientist for every Combatant Command and Defense and Service Intelligence agency in the DoD. She was on the OSD Senior Technical Experts Group and led MITRE’s Independent Research and Development (R&D) to develop patented, globally licensed work in advanced data analytics. Dr. Costa was responsible for establishing the largest data repository and AI-enabled data mining capability outside the National Capital Region in support of special mission unit target adjudication. As Director of the Non-Traditional Information and Knowledge Exploitation cell at USSOCOM, she led multidisciplinary teams to develop worldwide intelligence assessments. These efforts were at the request of Combatant Commanders to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. This model was used for developing intel/ops centers across the globe.
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