Brigitta Rubin

Brigitta Rubin is a passionately curious scientist, entrepreneur, and science fiction writer with a penchant for calling out the elephants in the room and championing the audacious. She started her career at Sandia National Labs, where she published seminal research in siloxane materials while earning bachelors' degrees in psychology and chemistry. She transitioned from the lab to the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA), where she learned the art of disrupting the status quo. Since then, her work has spanned every aspect of the innovation process -- from program envisioning to developing novel business and implementation approaches.

After navigating the Technology Transition Valley of Death for 20 years, Brigitta decided to develop a different approach to innovation, changing individual and organizational concepts of failure. In 2020, she developed Space2Fail to break malignant perceptions of failure and build psychological safety, the foundation of resilient teams. Teams with psychological safety are DEFIANT. They forge interpersonal trust to discuss ideas that Disrupt the status quo and comfortably Explore new domains. They absorb disruptive findings, evolving from Failure to Innovate faster; Anticipate change more objectively, and leverage cross-industry Networks. DEFIANT teams drive the product, process, and workforce Transformation necessary to compete in an era of complex global change.

Brigitta's most recent endeavor, a materials engineering startup called Reinforced Filament, is a unique platform that merges materials science and adaptive insights to create composable capabilities on demand. She is a board member of the Board of Army RDT&E, Systems Acquisition, & Logistics (BARSL) and advises the Department of Defense, law enforcement, and intelligence communities on emerging technologies, entre-/intrapreneurship, and scaling impact.

Brigitta Rubin is a passionately curious scientist, entrepreneur, and science fiction writer with a penchant for calling out the elephants in the room and championing the audacious. She started her career at Sandia National Labs, where she published seminal research in siloxane materials. Her career spans every aspect of innovation, from program envisioning at DARPA to novel commercial business approaches. After navigating the Technology Transition Valley of Death for 20 years, Brigitta decided to develop a different approach to innovation, changing individual and organizational concepts of failure. In 2020, she developed Space2Fail to break malignant perceptions of failure and build psychological safety, the foundation of resilient teams.

Brigitta’s most recent endeavor, a materials engineering startup called Reinforced Filament, is a unique platform that merges materials science and adaptive insights to create composable capabilities on demand. She is a board member of the Board of Army RDT&E, Systems Acquisition, & Logistics (BARSL) as well as advises government, commercial, and academic organizations on emerging technologies, entre-/intrapreneurship, and scaling impact.