Victoria Stavridou-Coleman – who was born in Greece – was named the director of the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. 

She served in technology jobs for the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, Silicon Valley startup Atlas AI, the Wikimedia Foundation, Yahoo, and Samsung. 

Air Force Magazine reported that, “Coleman is taking the helm in an era when the Pentagon’s push to accelerate research and development is a central piece of its global competition strategy. From hypersonic weapons to quantum computing, her challenge will be to find areas where no one else is exploring, and to anticipate how DOD’s tech priorities might evolve over the coming decades.” 

Coleman said that, “DARPA is in the business of systematic changemaking, not just about discovering what the new breakthrough might be,” especially with U.S. military might being challenged by China. 

The first in her family to attend college, she said, “if I can do this, how many other kids like me believe that they can do it, too?”