Marie Sandrock

Deputy Director, Strategic Capabilities Office

U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)

Dr. Marie Sandrock currently serves as the Deputy Director for the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO). As the Deputy Director, she oversees SCO’s mission to develop new and innovative technologies to shape and counter emerging threats across all domains, bringing unexpected and game- changing capabilities to the Joint Force.

Dr. Sandrock has over 15 years of experience in technology development across the Department of Defense. She most recently served in an Intergovernmental Personnel Act Assignment from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU-APL) as the SCO Director of Programs from 2017-2018, providing technical and programmatic oversight of the 32-program advanced technology portfolio. In that role, she served as the senior program manager and counterpart of the Director and Deputy Director of SCO in directing high-risk, high-payoff research and development to solve near- and mid-term warfighting challenges. Additionally, Dr. Sandrock served as a SCO Program Manager for unmanned undersea, innovative weapons and aerial systems from 2015- 2017. She was responsible for complete program oversight, managing field demonstrations and transitioning technologies to the Services. Prior to joining SCO, she served as the lead for special projects at JHU-APL working directly with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. She held a series of positions of increasing responsibility in the science and technology arena including support to the Defense Intelligence Community and the Defense for Advanced Research Projects Agency, where she led a team of over 25 scientists, providing technical services as a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton. She also served as a technical researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory working to develop new, lightweight adaptive lenses for unmanned air vehicles.

Dr. Sandrock is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a dual major in Chemistry and Art History and earned her Doctorate in Physical Chemistry from Georgetown University.

Event Participation