Dr. Tom Rondeau is the Principal Director for FutureG & 5G for the US Department of Defense, serving in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)). In these roles, Dr. Rondeau is responsible for guiding the Department on research, funding, and execution of programs around warfighting capabilities using 5G and future generation wireless technologies.

Prior to this role, Dr. Rondeau spent more than six years as a DARPA program manager, working on numerous technology areas to improve wireless networking and communications. Some of the programs he managed include the Arrays at Commercial Timescales – Integration & Validation (ACT-IV), building software defined arrays; Hedgehog, driving towards more capable software defined radio; Domain-Specific System on Chip (DSSoC), inventing new edge and embedded processor architectures; and Data Protection in Virtual Environments (DPRIVE), enabling computing on encrypted data. Dr. Rondeau executed many other programs, ran a series of hackfests on software radio, and helped as a subject matter expert on numerous problems for the US Department of Defense and the intelligence community. His work at DARPA earned him the Distinguished Public Service Medal. His work as Principal Director for FutureG & 5G will continue to advance wireless networking concepts for national security.

Prior to joining DARPA, Dr. Rondeau ran the GNU Radio project and consulted on wireless communications problems. In this role, Dr. Rondeau worked with many companies and organizations around the world to build solutions to difficult problems and emerging technologies and through this work helped build a large community of experts in software radio that has turned into a thriving ecosystem. He has also worked as a visiting researcher with the University of Pennsylvania and as an Adjunct with the IDA Center for Communications Research in Princeton, NJ.

Dr. Rondeau holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, and his dissertation won the Council of Graduate Schools’ 2007 Outstanding Dissertation Award in math, science, and engineering. Dr. Rondeau has spoken at numerous conferences and symposia, published extensively on software radio, and wrote one of the first books on cognitive radio.

Known as FTR to those who've shared some pints with him, Dr. Rondeau is also an avid consumer of stories through books, movies, and television and is himself a raconteur, eager to share tales of his travels and adventures.