Sarah Popkin

Dr. Sarah Popkin joined DARPA in January 2023 as a program manager in the Tactical Technology Office. Areas of expertise include hypersonic aerodynamics, trajectory generation, hybrid rocket propulsion, and active flow control. She is particularly interested in developing capabilities to maximize the utility and performance of high-speed flight vehicles.

Prior to joining DARPA, Popkin managed the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) basic research portfolio in High-Speed Aerodynamics, covering a range of topics including boundary layer physics, fluid structure interactions, and non-equilibrium chemistry. Popkin also managed the boundary layer transition family of flight experiments while at AFOSR. Prior to AFOSR, Popkin was a senior professional staff at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where she held numerous roles. She supported several DARPA hypersonic programs (TBG, OpFires and AFRE), served as the chief scientist of the Advanced Weapon System Group and was the co-principal investigator for a hypersonic test-bed concept.

Popkin holds a Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Science, and Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.