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Transform Your R&D Strategy into a Competitive Advantage
Managing a high-impact federal research portfolio requires more than funding promising ideas, especially as agencies navigate tighter FY budgets and government-wide directives to advance responsible AI adoption.
For organizations operating under the ARPA model and other mission-driven R&D frameworks, the challenge is identifying true technical inflection points and justifying bold investments that align to modernization priorities and national competitiveness goals.
Research leaders are being pushed beyond static reporting and retrospective metrics toward real-time insight that better connects scientific discovery to mission outcomes. Advances in artificial intelligence are creating new opportunities to analyze research activity at scale, assess technology readiness earlier, and strengthen the link between innovation and operational impact.
In this GovExec webcast, public sector research leaders and industry experts will discuss how AI-enabled approaches can help agencies meet evolving transparency and AI governance requirements while still pursuing high-risk, high-reward innovation. The conversation will explore how to:
- Identify emerging research gaps and white space
- Strengthen the evidence behind major R&D investments
- Surface technical hurdles earlier
- Shift from periodic portfolio reviews to more continuous, data-driven monitoring
Tune In Wednesday, April 22 at 2pm EDT
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Speakers
Emily Alagha
VP of the Government, Funder, and Non-profit Segment
Digital Science
Emily Alagha
VP of the Government, Funder, and Non-profit Segment
Digital Science
Emily Alagha is the VP of the Government, Funder, and Non-profit Segment at Digital Science. She defines the global strategy for national research funders, focusing on the intersection of AI, innovative funding methodologies, and the "Science of Science". Emily serves as a subject matter expert for federal and non-profit partners, helping them leverage high-scale data to strategize mission-critical initiatives. She joined Digital Science following roles at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Georgetown University Medical Center, where she specialized in evidence synthesis and mission-critical data reporting.
Dr. Laurent Pilon
Associate Director for Technology and Program Director
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E)
Dr. Laurent Pilon
Associate Director for Technology and Program Director
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E)
Dr. Laurent Pilon serves as an Associate Director for Technology and Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E). His focus at ARPA-E is on building materials, superconductors, advanced manufacturing, electrical energy storage, thermal energy storage, and circularity.
Pilon joined ARPA-E from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he is a professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. Over the last 20 years, Pilon has engaged in a wide range of interdisciplinary research projects at the intersection of interfacial and transport phenomena, radiative heat transfer, and material science for the development of sustainable energy conversion, storage, and efficiency technologies.
He has co-authored 6 book chapters, 200 archival journal publications, and has also filed 7 patents. At UCLA, Pilon has advised 30 Ph.D. students, 22 M.S. students, and 5 post-doctoral scholars. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (2005), the Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer (2008), and the Heat Transfer Memorial Award (2021) from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
Pilon received a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Applied Physics from the Grenoble Institute of Technology, France and earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.