Ms. Kristen J. Baldwin served as the Deputy Director for Strategic Technology Protection and Exploitation within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.  She served as the Department of Defense (DoD) lead for maintaining technology advantage by mitigating exploitation and vulnerabilities of critical missions, programs, technologies, and the industrial base.  Ms. Baldwin oversees program protection policy and related hardware and software assurance, anti-tamper, and critical technical information protection practices.  She oversees the Joint Federated Assurance Center and leads DoD policy and standards for trusted and assured systems.  She oversees the DoD National Manufacturing Institutes and the Manufacturing Technology program. 

Before this appointment, Ms. Baldwin served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering and Principal Deputy, Systems Engineering, overseeing engineering policy, practice, and the DoD engineering workforce.  She led digital engineering, system security engineering, trusted and assured microelectronics, and system of systems engineering initiatives and was a founder of the DoD Systems Engineering Research Center, a University Affiliated Research Center. 

A member of the Senior Executive Service since 2007, Ms. Baldwin has also served as Deputy Director, Software Engineering and System Assurance.  Before joining the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Ms. Baldwin served as a science and technology advisor in the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans.  She began her career at the U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal.

Ms. Baldwin is a recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank award in recognition of exemplary service, and the National Defense Industrial Association Lt Gen Thomas R. Ferguson, Jr., Systems Engineering Excellence Award.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Master of Systems Management from the Florida Institute of Technology.