As the director for the U. S. Army Research Lab (ARL) Computational & Information Sciences Directorate, Cynthia Bedell is responsible for basic and applied research Network and Information Sciences, Cyber Defense, High Performance Computing, and Battlefield Environments. She has technical oversight of the state-of-the art high performance computing assets, computational capabilities, and wide area networking methodologies for ARL, the Department of the Army, and the Department of Defense. ARL is the U.S. Army’s corporate laboratory, strategically placed within the Army Futures Command (AFC). ARL’s mission is to “Discover, innovate, and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power”.
Previously, as the Regional Lead for ARL West, Cindy Bedell established the first extended campus for the US Army Research Lab to make ARL and its researchers more accessible to academics as well as business research leaders on the west coast. The drive is to establish mutually beneficial S&T collaborations particularly in the field of Human Information Interaction. While serving as acting Director, Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, she focused on guiding scientific discovery, technological innovation, and transition of knowledge products within the research areas of network, computational, information, and meteorological sciences especially as it impacts the Army’s future mission capabilities. When she joined CISD in 2014, Ms. Bedell served as the Associate Directorate for Science and Technology as well as the collaborative alliance manager for the Multi-scale Materials Enterprise.
Cindy Bedell brings with her 30 years of military experience. Prior to her military retirement, Colonel Bedell led the US Army RDECOM Forward Element Command – Atlantic in searching across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, for applicable technologies to support current and future warfighters. She also served as the Director of Science and Technology Support for Current Operations for the System of Systems Integration Office, U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM). In this role, she helped develop science and technology strategies to allow the Army to address technology shortfalls in current and future war-fighting systems. As Product Manager, Sensors and Lasers, Colonel Bedell was responsible for the Soldier-borne night vision devices, thermal sensors and sights, and laser pointers, rangefinders and designators. She accelerated the engineering design cycles for a number of systems; to include the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle and the 25 micron Vanadium Oxide based Thermal Weapons Sight.
She earned both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She served as Assistant Professor in the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department at the United States Military Academy. She attended the University of Texas, as an Army Senior Service College Fellow. She holds United States Patent 5,413,649, with Dr. David Dunand for a method to enhance superplasticity for ease in forming complex composites in materials that undergo phase transformation.
