Dr. Gillian Bussey is currently the inaugural director of the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office (JHTO) in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Research, and Engineering, Advanced Capabilities. The JHTO is responsible for the integrated S&T roadmap for hypersonics, working with foreign allies, setting up a university consortium in the field of hypersonics, and providing oversight of DoD hypersonics programs. She set up the office in April 2020 according to Congressional direction and oversees a $100 million budget and office of ten people.

She was a special advisor to the Assistant Director, Hypersonics office as a detailee from the CIA advising the department on hypersonics weapons, technologies, and applicable missile defenses from June 2018 to April 2020. As the acting director for Aerospace Technologies from July 2019 to February 2020, she was also responsible for overseeing DoD activities in air platforms and related propulsion technologies. She was responsible for airbreathing hypersonics and engagements with allies and universities. She spent six months on assignment at the Defence Science Technology Group (DSTG)’s Applied Hypersonics Branch near Brisbane, Australia in 2015 and 2016 supporting the joint US Air Force-DSTG HIFIRE program and DSTG’s hypersonics programs.

She was CIA’s hypersonics systems and technologies analyst in the Weapons Counterproliferation Mission Center from 2011 to July 2018. She analyzed flight data from hypersonic systems and air-launched weapons from May 2007 to September 2012.

She has degrees in physics and political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2005) and a M.S. and Ph.D in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park (2009, 2012). While at the University of Maryland, her research focused on hypersonics.

She is an AIAA associate fellow and member of a panel reviewing NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles portfolio.