Areas of Expertise:

Jill Dahlburg is the Superintendent of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Science Division (SSD), from 2007. In this position she leads a broad-spectrum RDT&E program in solar-terrestrial physics, astrophysics, upper/ middle atmospheric science, and astronomy. To study the atmospheres of the Sun and Earth, solar activity and its effects on the Earth’s atmosphere, and physics and properties of celestial sources, the NRL SSD conceives, plans, and executes scientific research and development programs on instruments for on satellites, sounding rockets and balloons, and ground-based facilities, and on mathematical models and associated hardware, and transitions capabilities to operational use. Dr. Dahlburg is fully accountable for the overall financial, personnel, programmatic and facilities management of the SSD, including obtaining funding to support program execution within the Navy Working Capital Fund, and implementing plans for major scientific facilities to meet DON/ DoD extended operational environment predictive needs. Following receipt of the PhD in theoretical physics at the College of William & Mary, Dr. Dahlburg began her career at NRL in 1985, as a research physicist contributing to laser matter interaction research, implosion and coronal hydrodynamics, and laser beam imprinting. In 2000, Dr. Dahlburg served as Head of NRL’s Tactical Electronic Warfare Division Distributed Sensor Technology Office, where she co-proposed and was co-PI for Dragon Eye during its first year of development. The operational Dragon Eye is a small and inexpensive back-packable unmanned aerial vehicle that can be configured with various cameras and other payloads. From 2001 to mid-2003, Dr. Dahlburg left NRL for General Atomics (GA), as the Director of the Division of Inertial Fusion Technology and Co-Director of the Theory and Computing Center in the GA Energy Group. She returned to NRL as the Senior Scientist for Science Applications reporting to the NRL Director of Research. Her technical collaborations include scientists in both the national and international physics and engineering communities. She has served on numerous review and other committees for the DoD, the Department of Energy, the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, and the American Physical Society (APS), including as Chair of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (2005). Currently she is Chair of the DON Space Experiments Review Board from 2006, member of the LLNL Defense & Nuclear Technologies Director’s Review Committee (2001-), member of the Committee for Space Weather (2007-), member of the DoD Defense Science Board Advanced Computing Task Force (2008-), and member of the APS Maxwell Prize Committee (2009). Dr. Dahlburg’s professional honors include six NRL Allan Berman Research Publication Awards for scientific publication excellence. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.