MITRE Announces Silicon Valley AI Expert to Return as Fellow
McLean, Va., and Bedford, Mass., July 30, 2025 – The White House has outlined a bold vision for American leadership in artificial intelligence. To complement MITRE's existing leadership in the field, Mikel Rodriguez, Ph.D., has been named a MITRE Fellow, joining a distinguished group of senior MITRE technical experts who are internationally recognized leaders.
Rodriguez has over two decades of experience bringing transformative, AI-enabled solutions to complex challenges in both the private and public sectors. At Google DeepMind, he co-founded and led a team focused on research to enable the secure deployment of frontier AI systems, particularly for high-stakes applications. As a core team member of Google's Project Gemini, he helped develop and deploy foundational models that impacted products used by billions.
He has also served as a special government employee for the Defense Innovation Unit, where he helped the U.S. government identify and adopt emerging technologies, and previously led MITRE's AI and Autonomy Innovation Center.
"I am thrilled to welcome Mikel back to MITRE," said Charles Clancy, senior vice president and chief technology officer. "His expertise and leadership in prototyping and deploying advanced AI solutions will accelerate our work driving AI adoption throughout the federal government. His passion for fostering collaboration across government, industry, and academia will help MITRE accelerate AI innovation, delivering on the administration's vision for American AI leadership."
Rodriguez will be part of a team of hundreds of data scientists and AI engineers that currently provide deep expertise across the executive branch, utilizing resources like MITRE’s Federal AI Sandbox, a supercomputer built in partnership with NVIDIA. The Sandbox can train large language models and tackle government-specific AI tasks, such as enhancing military command and control, securing infrastructure, and reducing fraud.
Rodriguez joins at a pivotal time as MITRE's work supporting federal efforts to deploy AI solutions continues to grow. He brings deep expertise in enterprise-scale AI deployment, accelerating government AI adoption, strengthening AI security, building secure and reliable AI, and fostering public-private collaboration. He will be an essential member of the team helping agencies move from planning to execution, implementing high-impact AI for the federal government.
MITRE Fellows are a select group of preeminent scientists in their fields who direct high-risk scientific and technical initiatives to address national and global challenges. They serve as subject matter experts and advisers to mission-critical programs, and their expertise spans a range of fields, from AI and cyber resiliency to aerospace. MITRE Fellows have a history of deeply impactful work to the nation and world, including development of the Global Positioning System, and leadership in quantum information science, including the ongoing development of a universal photonic quantum computer.
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Media Contact: Jordan Graham, media@mitre.org