Dr. Amber Walker is the Senior Vice President of Ground, C2, and Maritime, Perry Labs and the former Technical Director for Land Systems at Anduril, responsible for strategy and growth in that domain. She worked to advance autonomous ground vehicle design, payload and software integration, and Soldier-robot teaming through both new concepts and targeted pursuits.
Prior to this, Dr. Walker was the Associate Director for Autonomy Research at Raytheon BBN leading initiatives in advanced perception, communications-aware autonomy, and human-machine interface design. From 2017–2021, she served as a Program Manager in Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Tactical Technology Office where she developed and managed projects related to hypersonic missiles, rocket motors, ground vehicles, and robotics.
She served over 16 years on active duty with the U.S. Army and continues her service as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserves. She has held positions in the Army G-8, as faculty in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and as a tactical Signal officer in the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, and Baghdad, Iraq (OIF 07-09).
Dr. Walker is a school trained Operations Research and Systems Analysis (ORSA) analyst and attended Space 200 military training in 2022. Her Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Attitude Aware Smartphones for Tele-Operated Robot Control. Dr. Walker is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Association of Rhodes Scholars, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the Signal Corps Regimental Association.
EDUCATION
University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering
University of Oxford (UK), MSc by Research, Engineering Science
United States Military Academy, B.S., Mechanical (Aeronautical) Engineering