Victoria Coleman
Victoria Coleman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Greece |
| Occupation(s) | Computer scientist, government official |
| Known for | 37th Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force, 22nd Director of DARPA |
Victoria Stavridou-Coleman assumed the role of the 37th Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force on April 6, 2021, following her swearing-in by Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.. Prior to this position, she was appointed as the 22nd Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on August 31, 2020, and officially took office on September 24, 2020, with Michael Kratsios, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, administering the oath. Coleman was notable for being the third female leader at DARPA since its establishment in 1958, concluding her directorship on January 20, 2021.
Career
Her professional experience includes serving as a senior advisor to the Director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at UC Berkeley. She also held the position of CEO at Atlas AI, a public benefit corporation focused on leveraging artificial intelligence for sustainable development goals. Before that, she operated as Chief Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, managing the technology systems behind Wikipedia. Coleman's executive background extends to senior roles such as CTO of Technicolor’s Connected Home division and Senior Vice President of Research and Development for Infotainment at Harman International.
At Yahoo!, she was Vice President of Engineering overseeing membership services, presentation technologies, and developer relations. While at Nokia, serving as Vice President of Emerging Platforms, she led teams responsible for key products like the Nokia Z Launcher and Nokia X smartphones. During her tenure as Vice President of Software Engineering at HP Palm, she directed the webOS platform and played a pivotal role in developing the HP TouchPad. At Samsung, she led the Computer Science Laboratory where she initiated projects including Tizen and Samsung Knox, focusing on smartphone security innovations.
Earlier in her career, Coleman was Director for Security Initiatives and led the Trust and Manageability Laboratory at Intel. She joined SRI International in 1998 after spending ten years as a tenured professor in London’s university system and established SRI’s System Design Laboratory in 1999. Her advisory contributions include membership on the Defense Science Board, founding Chairmanship of DARPA’s Microsystems Exploratory Council, and consultancy engagements with firms such as Lockheed Martin and Airbus.
Early life
Born in Greece, Coleman completed her undergraduate studies with a B.Sc. in Electronic Computer Systems and earned an M.Sc. in Computer-Aided Logic Design from the University of Salford. She then obtained a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Manchester. Throughout her career, she has been granted four patents and has published more than 60 scholarly articles and books.