Dr. Penrose "Parney" Albright
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Former Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology,

On October 3, 2003, the Senate confirmed the Presidential nomination of Dr. Penrose C. Albright of Virginia, to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security to the Science and Technology division at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Prior to joining the Department, Dr. Albright served as Assistant Director for the Office of Homeland and National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He also served as Senior Director for Research and Development in the Office of Homeland Security. Previously, he served as Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Earlier in his career, Dr. Albright served in a number of positions for the Institute for Defense Analyses.

Dr. Albright has been involved in the national security arena since 1986. During his assignment with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), he initiated and managed programs in hydrodynamic drag reduction, molecular biology, target tagging, and speech encoding. Prior to his time at DARPA, Dr. Albright was with the Science and Technology Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is a nationally known expert in ballistic missile boost-phase phenomenology and launch detection systems, and has served on several national panels in that area, including the so-called "Everett Panel" on Space Based Infrared Satellites; the Space-based Infrared Architecture Study; the Congressionally-mandated "Heritage Sensor" Study, and the Space Systems Phenomenology Study.

Dr. Albright has been involved for many years with studies and analyses of ballistic and cruise missile defense concepts, including technical and performance analyses of space-based and airborne laser programs; sea-based ballistic missile defense concepts; boost-phase intercept systems; and national missile defense concepts. He has served on a number of prominent panels related to missile defense, including all of the various so-called "Welch Panels" associated with National Missile Defense. Dr. Albright has also been part of the Congressionally-mandated reviews of the lethality of the Patriot PAC-3 and Standard Missile/Arrow Systems; the Boost-Phase Intercept Study for USD (A&T); and led the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Study for OSD and the Joint Staff. He has been a member of the Space-based Laser Independent Review Team, and the Senior Steering Group for National Cruise Missile Defense. He led the analytic portion of the joint US-Israeli Short Range Rocket Defense study commissioned by the Secretary of Defense, and served as the technical lead for the Theater Air and Missile Defense Modernization panel for the 1996 Quadrennial Defense Review.

Dr. Albright also served on the national panel that reviewed the nerve gas transport modeling of the Khamisiyah release event in Iraq. He led the analytic team for the 1999 Defense Science Board Summer Study, which revolved around issues associated with the transport and sustainment of future Army rapid deployment forces. Dr. Albright has also led or participated in studies for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the area hyperspectral and multispectral sensor technologies and their application to a diverse set of problems.

Dr. Albright received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1985 from the University of Maryland and his B.S. in both Physics and Applied Mathematics from the George Washington University in 1979.