The Honorable Kari A. Bingen was nominated by President Trump as the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (PDUSD(I)) and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate in May 2017.

As the PDUSD(I), Ms. Bingen was the deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD(I)), the Honorable Joseph D. Kernan, who is the principal intelligence, counterintelligence and security advisor to the Secretary of Defense (SecDef), and the SecDef’s principal representative to the Intelligence Community. The USD(I) is also dual-hatted as the Director of Defense Intelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and reports to the DNI in that capacity. The USD(I) exercises authority, direction, and control on behalf of the SecDef over the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Security Service. The USD(I) establishes policy and priorities; and oversees the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, consisting of more than 110,000 component employees, and an annual budget of over $54B. This includes the Military Intelligence Program, the Defense portion of the National Intelligence Program and the Battlespace Awareness portfolio.

From 2013 to 2017, Ms. Bingen served as the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Policy Director. Beginning in 2006, Ms. Bingen served in support of the Strategic Forces subcommittee of the HASC where she advised members conducting oversight of military intelligence programs, military space operations, missile defense, and the nuclear security enterprise of the DoD and Department of Energy.

Prior to entering government, Ms. Bingen was employed with SRA International’s Adroit C4ISR Center as a space systems analyst. She also served as a senior space policy analyst at the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.

She is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a 2002 NRO Technology Fellow.