Senior Principal Scientist for Cryptography and Applied Cryptography Research

About the role

The Cryptography, ICAM, & System Assurance Department at MITRE is a multi-disciplinary team focused on driving innovation in cryptography, system assurance, and identity, credential, and access management (ICAM). The department develops and applies scalable approaches for systems and software, evaluates technology and solutions, leads and fosters external partnerships, and conducts novel research and development.

Responsibilities

• Aiding the Federal Government as a community in architecting and applying modern cryptography and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) technologies to secure systems, software, and protocols.
• Developing strategies, assessing policy and technical constraints, and facilitating the deployment of cryptography solutions into cloud, hybrid, and on-premises infrastructures for enterprise and tactical environments.
• As senior trusted advisors and leaders within the cryptography and PQC community internally and external to MITRE, applying knowledge of industry trends, advances in commercial technology, and relevant industry standards and protocols to inform sponsors' decision-making.
• Performing research and development, evaluation and testing, and operational support for high-priority sponsor mission applications, MITRE Labs strategic initiatives, and MITRE’s internal research and development program.
• Leading the development of innovative cryptographic technologies that strengthen the security, resilience, and trustworthiness of mission-critical government systems while enabling operational transition across multiple sponsor communities.
• Advancing the integration of cryptography with artificial intelligence by developing secure and privacy-preserving approaches for AI-enabled systems, trusted AI infrastructure, model integrity, secure data collaboration, and AI-enabled cyber defense.
• Conceiving, championing, and establishing new technical thrusts that position MITRE several years ahead of sponsor demand while advancing the state of the art in cryptographic science and secure computing.
• Influencing the direction of national cryptographic strategy through leadership in standards organizations, interagency initiatives, advisory committees, technical working groups, and strategic partnerships.
• Defining and evolving MITRE’s long-term technical strategy for cryptography and secure computing across the Cyber Engineering Division, MITRE Labs, and MITRE’s FFRDC Program Divisions.
• Providing strategic technical leadership across sponsor programs, corporate research investments, independent research initiatives, and emerging technology areas.
• Fostering technical collaboration across MITRE and establishing enduring partnerships with government, industry, academia, federally funded laboratories, and standards organizations.
• Expanding MITRE’s impact through technology transition, standards development, open collaboration, publications, reference implementations, and innovative sponsor work that advances national cybersecurity.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or higher in a relevant field.
• 15+ years of experience in relevant domain.
• Proven technical depth and recognized external technical stature in a breadth of technologies within the cryptography technical capability area, including commercial products, emerging tools, research capabilities, etc.
• Demonstrated ability to define and lead collaborative efforts both within, and across, different organizations and stakeholders (local, sponsor, industry, etc.).
• Demonstrated ability to build collaborative relationships across organizational units.
• Track record of successful project management (scoping, costing, execution, delivery, etc.).
• History of successful project initiation (definition, scoping, aligning to need, costing, etc.) and project management (execution, staffing, schedule management, delivery, quality review, etc.).
• Applicants selected for this position will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.
• Minimum of 50% hybrid on-site.