Sezin A. Palmer is the first Mission Area Executive for National Health at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which has been recognized by Fast Company in 2016 as one of the most innovative companies in Healthcare. The vision of the National Health Mission Area is to revolutionize health through science and engineering – a vision shared with our partners at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The National Health Mission Area takes a systems approach to understanding health determinants to better predict and prevent illness, injury and disease and applying this knowledge to develop novel capabilities to rapidly detect and respond to changes in health status. As the nation’s largest University Affiliated Research Center, APL performs research and development on behalf of the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and other federal agencies. The Laboratory has more than 6,000 staff members who are making critical contributions to a wide variety of nationally and globally significant technical and scientific challenges.

Prior to her current appointment, Ms. Palmer served as the Mission Area Executive for Research and Exploratory Development. Under her leadership, APL made significant contributions to the fields of neuroscience, biomechanics, intelligent systems and materials science. Previously, Ms. Palmer held leadership positions with increasing responsibility including Program Manager and Program Area Manager in the Laboratory’s Undersea Warfare mission area. Ms. Palmer was responsible for the technical and programmatic oversight of numerous Navy programs in submarine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and mine-countermeasures capability development. She also served as the Laboratory’s representative to the Commander, Pacific Fleet staff. Additionally, from 2002-2005 Ms. Palmer served as a panel member of the Chief of Naval Operations Mine Countermeasures Technical Advisory Group and from 2010-2012 as a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Submarine Security Working Group.

Prior to joining the Laboratory in 2000, Ms. Palmer held technical positions at the US Naval Research Laboratory and served as an analyst in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence where she led foreign naval systems analyses.

Ms. Palmer earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University.