Four years ago, houses still dotted the streets near Cass and Jefferson avenues, the remnants of a neighborhood that had seen residents leave and investment dwindle for decades. On Tuesday, top federal intelligence and military officials gathered here, now a cleared 97-acre site, and promised to pour $1.7 billion into a new campus for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, hopeful that the 3,000-plus NGA jobs will draw even more private investment to the near north side.

Catherine Marsh will serve as the director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, a research organization within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence charged with developing new tools to solve the intelligence communities most difficult problems, the office announced Nov. 22. 

The Director of National Intelligence submits this summary consistent with direction in Section 5061 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. § 3105) (as added by Section 307 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012), which provides:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) welcomes Dr. Catherine Marsh as the director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). She succeeds Dr. Stacey Dixon, who now serves as deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

What a pleasure to be here amongst so many old friends to share some thoughts on Counterterrorism in an Era of Competing priorities.

We are almost two decades removed from 9/11, and fortunately, we have been successful in preventing major attacks against the homeland. This success raises the important question of how counterterrorism should stack up against competing priorities, an increasingly relevant issue.