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Gilbert Herrera

Gilbert Herrera

Director of Research, National Security Agency

About Me

Gilbert (Gil) V. Herrera serves as the director of research at the National Security Agency. The research directorate conducts world-class scientific research to develop new and innovative techniques and technologies to enable the signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions of the NSA and the Central Security Service, as well as joint-authority missions of the intelligence community and the US Department of Defense. 


Gil joined the NSA after serving nearly 40 years at Sandia National Laboratories, where his last assignment was as a laboratory fellow – only one of 15 such appointments in Sandia’s 70-year history. In 2020, he was appointed to the US National Quantum Initiative advisory committee, which advises the nation’s highest offices on matters concerning quantum-information science. He is a fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.


Gil previously served with the NSA as the director of the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (2015–18). He also served as the director of Microsystems Science and Technology (2006–15), which included directing Sandia’s MESA complex, a silicon and compound semiconductor fabrication facility that also includes more than 120 individual research laboratories. 

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