Group Leader G52

The Cyber Security and Information Sciences Division (Division
5) is seeking a Group Leader to direct the strategic vision, research portfolio, and operational execution of the AI Technology & Systems Group (Group 52). The Group Leader will join the Division 5 leadership team to develop cutting-edge technologies and advanced prototypes that enable United States national security organizations to maintain leadership in cyber operations artificial intelligence.

Group 52 is engaged in cutting-edge research and development at the intersection of artificial intelligence and national security. The group's strategic vision and technical portfolio are organized into primary pillars including:

• AI Security: A critical and rapidly expanding focus on ensuring the robustness, resilience, and trustworthiness of AI and machine learning systems against adversarial threats. This includes developing methodologies to evaluate and counter AI vulnerabilities, defending against evasion and poisoning attacks, and ensuring ML systems operate securely and reliably in contested national security environments. Group 52 also operates the Laboratory’s AI red team and performs model evaluations up to the scale of leading foundation models.
• AI for Cyber Operations (AI-Cyber):
  Leveraging advanced artificial intelligence to enhance and scale cyber operations. This pillar focuses on applying machine learning to cyber and transaction analysis, automating threat detection and vulnerability assessment, and developing intelligent capabilities that support cyberspace operations with a focus on agentic techniques.
• Multimedia & Human Language Technologies (HLT):
  Maintaining a world-class, foundational portfolio in speech, text, image, and language processing. This includes automatic speech recognition, language and dialect identification, machine translation, cross-media recognition, entity and relationship extraction, and the analysis of social networks based on multi-modal information extraction (speech, text, video) including influence operations and information operations.

In each of the group’s R&D pillars, emphasis is placed on realistic data, rigorous experimental evaluation, and the transition of new capabilities to operational deployment. On a global scale, Group 52 leads research across these domains, maintaining a long-standing and extensive publication record and a history of international honors for its staff.

• Define, lead, and execute the long-term strategic vision for the 70+ members of Group 52, ensuring alignment with Division 5 and Laboratory-wide objectives.
• Identify and shape strategically important vectors for internal investment, particularly in the rapidly evolving domain of AI Security.
• Maintain deep awareness of changing national needs, adversary capabilities, and technology trends to inform strategic planning and program development.

• Develop and sustain strategic relationships with senior government and military leaders, including sponsors within the Intelligence Community, DoD, DARPA, and other key U.S. Government agencies.
• Engage with existing and new sponsor representatives to facilitate tight alignment to their technical needs and partner with their mission components to ensure we understand and are addressing their core operational needs as they evolve.
• Foster and facilitate high-impact academic relationships, maintaining strong collaborations with MIT campus and other university partners.
• Have and maintain relationships with the AI Frontier companies, the AI defense start-up ecosystem, and the prime/neo-prime defense contractors.
• Champion the Group’s scientific and academic presence on a global scale by promoting top-tier conference attendance, journal publishing, and technical community leadership.

• Provide executive oversight for the execution of all programs within the Group’s portfolio, ensuring technical excellence, rigorous evaluation, and successful transition of prototypes to sponsors.
• Oversee the development of major program proposals, white papers, and statements of work, managing high-level…