DARPA Execs Tapped for DOD Deputy CIO, DARPA CIO

The Defense Department selected William Dunlap as its permanent deputy CIO for information enterprise, according to the agency’s CIO office.

Dunlap took over the role in an acting capacity after Lily Zeleke stepped down from the position in February.

In the role, Dunlap will lead the development and implementation of “strategic direction and defense-wide policy guidance to modernize the department’s digital infrastructure that enables the full range of defense operations,” according a DOD statement.

Previously, Dunlap served as CIO and director for the Information Technology Directorate at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he oversaw daily operations of DARPA networks and developed IT policies. His tenure at DARPA spans 20 years and also had served as chief of classified IT operations.

Peiter Zatko returns to DARPA as its new CIO, he said on X Tuesday. Zatko had served at DARPA in 2013 as a project manager and helped stand up the agency’s cyber office.

“A lot of the magic created through things like Cyber Fast Track (CFT) were due to the direct participation of this community,” he said in the post addressing the hacker community. “The projects, designed to ensure they gave back to this community, continue to evolve and grow today.”

Since then, he had served in various security roles at Google and the social site known as Twitter before it rebranded. He prominently called attention to Twitter’s security practices that became a focal point during Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company.