DTIC Acting Administrator

Ms. Jacks was appointed to serve as the Acting Director of the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) in March 2025. In this role, she is responsible for DTIC’s essential mission to capture the research behind the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Scientific and Technical (S&T) innovations and provide the knowledge platforms for future researchers to discover and move that innovation forward into new capabilities for the defense of our Nation and benefit of our Warfighters. She leads an integrated team who are engineering DTIC’s digital transformation, employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to provide insights and present analysis of DoD’s S&T activities. She plans and directs DTIC’s activities to coordinate science and technology information (STINFO) policy covering preservation and reuse of the results of DoD’s multibillion-dollar investment in S&T.

In her role as Acting Administrator for DTIC, a field activity reporting to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)), she oversees DoD’s single central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information, comprising close to 5 million records.

Ms. Jacks also directs the operations of the DoD’s Information Analysis Centers (DoDIAC), through which the DoD and federal government agencies are provided research and analysis answering thousands of technical questions annually. The DoDIAC also provides contracting assistance for Research and Development (R&D) efforts, supporting more than 800 organizations, annually placing billions of R&D, engineering, and technical analysis on contract.

Most recently, Ms. Jacks served as DTIC’s Deputy Administrator, a position she held since February 2017 in concurrence with her duties as DTIC Chief Information Officer (CIO). As Deputy Administrator, she supported DTIC’s mission to ensure the innovation and knowledge stemming from DoD’s past and current investment in S&T forms the building blocks for the next generation of discovery, enhancing and accelerating American warfighters capabilities and maintained DTIC resourcing alignment to DoD priorities and fiscal constraints through the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process.

Ms. Jacks was appointed as DTIC’s CIO in October 2016. In that capacity, her responsibilities included developing strategy to deliver advanced capabilities to the Defense S&T community; preparing DTIC for the future of cloud, AI, and ML aligned to DTIC and OUSD(R&E) priorities and staff development including cultivating the next generation of talent and bringing innovative and high-demand critical skills in cybersecurity and data science to DTIC through the Cybersecurity Talent Initiative and the U.S. Digital Corps.

Ms. Jacks’ prior federal service includes the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) where she served as Chief Information Security Officer, and more than a decade supporting the U.S. Department of State. Her State Department career included positions with the Bureau of Oceans, Environmental and Scientific Affairs; Diplomatic Security; Information Resource Management; Intelligence and Research; and the Executive Secretariat.

Ms. Jacks is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and Southern New Hampshire University where she earned a Master of Data Analytics. She completed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Quantum Computing Fundamentals Online Program in 2019; and received the Distinguished Graduate Award from the National Defense University (NDU) College of Information and Cyberspace Chief Information Security Officer Program in 2010. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Partnership for Public Service Excellence in Government Service Fellows Program; and holds Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Information Systems Security Management Professional (ISSMP) credentials from the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) credential from the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and a Project Management Professional (PMP) credential from the Project Management Institute (PMI).