Dr. Brian M. Pierce

Deputy Director

Dr. Pierce joined DARPA in 2005, as Deputy Director of SPO. From 2002 to 2005, Dr. Pierce was with Rockwell Scientific Company (formerly Rockwell Science Center) in Thousand Oaks, CA, where he was Executive Director of the Electronics Division with a technology portfolio of high-performance III-V compound semiconductor materials, devices and ICs; MEMS; microwave/millimeter-wave components; data converter components; wide bandgap RF and power electronics; and high-heat flux thermal management. From 1983 to 2002, he held various engineering positions at Hughes Aircraft Company in Southern California, which became part of Raytheon in 1997. These positions included management of advanced antenna programs involving RF MEMS and nonlinear dielectric technologies.

Dr. Pierce has been active in the research and development of affordable, electronically scanned antennas (ESAs) for sensor and communication applications. At Hughes Aircraft Company, he contributed to the development and demonstration of the world's first two-dimensional ESA based on nonlinear dielectric materials, and to ESAs scanned by RF MEMS phase-shifters. Prior to his work on advanced antennas, Dr. Pierce was focused on the R&D of nonlinear optical materials and energy transfer in polymers. These activities included serving as a Guest Professor at the Technical University of Denmark in 1988.

Dr. Pierce received the BS in Chemistry and Mathematics with Highest Honors from the University of California at Riverside, as well as the MS and PhD in Chemistry. He has twenty US patents, and is author/co-author of over thirty papers and reports in the fields of antennas, RF MEMS, nonlinear phenomena, chemical physics, and environmental technology.