The University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) has appointed Dr. Adele Merritt as its new Chief Research Officer. ARLIS is one of only 15 Department of Defense–designated University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) in the nation, and the sole UARC dedicated to intelligence and national security.
Dr. Merritt brings more than 25 years of technical, analytic, and policy experience in cybersecurity and national security operations. Announcing her new role on LinkedIn on September 19, she explained her focus as leading ARLIS’s strategic scientific and technical initiatives, elevating the impact of its research, and expanding external partnerships that will strengthen the lab’s national security mission.
Before joining ARLIS in August 2025, Dr. Merritt served as Chief Information Officer for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from December 2024 to August 2025, overseeing IT strategy, governance, cybersecurity, and infrastructure across 27 institutes and centers. From January 2022 to December 2024, she was the Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). At ODNI, she led modernization of the IC Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE) and drove efforts to strengthen IT security and collaboration across intelligence agencies.
Dr. Merritt is also a former National Security Fellow at Harvard University, holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Rhode Island, and a BBA from Pace University.
As CRO, Dr. Merritt will work with ARLIS’s research teams to align cutting-edge science and technology initiatives with the lab’s core mission areas. Her leadership is expected to advance ARLIS’s role as a critical innovation hub for intelligence and national security research.
(AI was used in part to facilitate this article.)