Forging New Paths in National Security

The WorldDenver Young Professionals are delighted to partner with Lockheed Martin, presenting sponsor of WorldDenver's International Women's Day celebration, to host a panel of incredible women forging new paths in national security. Moderated by Jamie Landers, Director of Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space, the discussion will explore the varying career paths that impact peace and security both nationally and abroad, and delve into the ways that women are making a difference.

Presented by:

About Our Panelists

Sahana Dharmapuri
Director, Our Secure Future, One Earth Future Foundation

Sahana Dharmapuri is the Director of Our Secure Future, a program of One Earth Future Foundation. From 2006-2016 she was an independent gender advisor on gender, peace, and security issues to USAID, NATO, The Swedish Armed Forces, the United States Institute for Peace, International Peace Institute, and other international development organizations. Ms. Dharmapuri was a writer-residence at the Carey Institute for Global Good (Winter 2016) where she completed her first book, Women, Peace & Security: 10 Things You Should Know. She was appointed a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2011-2013) and she was an Investing in Women in Development Fellow at the United States Agency for International Development (2003-2005). She has published widely on Women, Peace and Security issues including with CNN, Christian Science Monitor, The Fletcher Security Review, Hedaya and The Center for Global Counter-Terrorism, Women’s E-News, Human Rights Quarterly, The Global Responsibility to Protect Journal, The Global Observatory, The Alliance for Peacebuilding Online Journal, the Louisiana Literature Review, The US Naval War College’s Women, Peace and Security monograph series, and Parameters: The Senior Professional Journal of the US Army. She received her Bachelor’s and two Master’s degrees from the University of Chicago. She is a very happy breast-cancer survivor.

Dr. Samantha Edgington
Systems Engineer & Chief Scientist, Geostationary Lighting Mapper, Lockheed Martin

Dr. Samantha Edgington attended graduate school at Caltech, where she built a millimeter wave instrument to measure the Sunyaev-Zel’Dovich effect and calculate the mass density of the universe using data taken at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.  She obtained her PhD in physics in 2004, and spent a year teaching astronomy to undergraduates before joining Lockheed Martin.  For the past 13 years she worked as systems engineer and chief scientist for the Geostationary Lighting Mapper, the first operational instruments to detect lightning from geostationary orbit on the GOES-R series of weather satellites.  She is currently developing instruments for future weather and astrophysics missions, including the next generation lightning mapper for NOAA’s GEO-XO constellation.

Alison Garfield
Truman Fellow

Alison Garfield has worked for the past eight years in financial services compliance.  Prior to her move into financial services, Alison worked for 10 years at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), which included three years working for the UK Ministry of Defence in London.  She first became interested in financial services, and more specifically financial crimes compliance, during her tenure at DoD, where during one of her assignments she helped develop and implement weapons of mass destruction-related sanctions. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College and a Masters in Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. 

Jaisha Wray
Associate Administrator, Office of International Affairs, NTI

Jaisha Wray is the Associate Administrator for International Affairs at the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). In this role, she formulates telecommunications and information policies and promotes these policies in international fora. 

Previously, she was the Director for International Cyber Policy in the Cybersecurity Directorate of the National Security Council where she was responsible for drafting and implementing the U.S. strategy on 5G technology as well as enhancing international cybersecurity cooperation with a wide range of partners and allies. She was also the Acting Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Emerging Security Challenges where she contributed to the formulation of outer space and cyber stability policies and diplomatic strategies. At the State Department, she served as a Political Officer at U.S. Embassy London and as a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Office of Missile Defense and Space Policy. She began her government career as a Presidential Management Fellow where she completed rotations in the Space and Cyber Policy Directorate of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and in the National Reconnaissance Office.

Ms. Wray holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Los Angeles as well as a M.A. in International Relations and a Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She has completed the International Space University Space Studies Program and the Harvard Kennedy School's Executive Education course on cybersecurity.

About Our Moderator

Jamie Landers
Director of Advanced Programs, Lockheed Martin Space

Jamie Landers is the Director of Business Development Advanced Programs for Lockheed Martin Space. She is focused on rapid technology development, aiming to accelerate the pace at which we germinate and fly new missions. She identifies commercial, civil, and military entities to form strategic partnerships, instituting an entrepreneurial mindset disrupting the status quo to deliver new innovative solutions.

Previously, she was a Technical Program Manager at Analytical Graphics Inc (AGI), where she worked alongside customers at Department of Defense (DoD), Space Situational Awareness (SSA) centers, intelligence organizations, and with international partners to enhance the safe operations in outer space. Her technical background  is in astrodynamics, including rendezvous and proximity operations, and conjunction analysis; where she aided in the protection of satellites on-orbit and identified gaps in strategic architectures. Additionally, she has been an invited speaker at commercial, civil, national and foreign government conferences to advocate for space sustainability. In a brief hiatus from aerospace, Ms. Landers owned and operated a gourmet food truck in Philadelphia, PA for four years. 

Jamie holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and Minor in Engineering Leadership Development from the Pennsylvania State University, attended the Writer’s Program at University of California Los Angeles, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Small Business Development Program. She is a proud Girl Scouts Gold Award recipient, three-time NASA Space Academy alumna, as well as competed on Food Network’s Chopped, Family Feud, appeared on the feature segment for “The Science of Thanksgiving” on NPR’s Radio Hour. She is the Champion of Sugar Showdown on the Cooking Channel. She resides in Highlands Ranch, CO with her husband Tom, their rescue dogs Rocket and Lilly, and their cats Olly and Groot.