Bio:
Patricia Herndon is the senior director for special projects for Purdue Applied Research Institute. In this role, she builds research programs across PARI to improve national security and to accelerate critical technologies.

Herndon has 35 years of Defense Department experience. She started her career in research and development of energetics. Herndon spent 10 years working advancement of new formulations in colored smoke and flare compositions, initiating devices, and 5-inch gun ammunition formulations and propellant. She also worked in acquisition engineering and test and evaluation of energetics.

Herndon then went into management and program management. She spent time in NAVSEA, PEO IWS 3C as the assistant program manager for small arms and landing party ammunition as well as 76-millimeter ammunition. There, she was responsible for cradle-to-grave capabilities and acquisition programs for these commodities. She served as the principal assistant program manager for rotating radars, NAVSEA PEO IWS 2.0, where she managed all rotating radars on naval maritime platforms. While in IWS 2.0, Herndon spent time as the deputy assistant program manager for above-water sensors.

Herndon held many management positions at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, including in the Acquisition and Extended Enterprise Department, the Global Deterrence and Defense Department and the Expeditionary Warfare Department. In expeditionary warfare, she spend eight years overseeing 1,200 government employees and 1,000 contractors with an annual budget of approximately $800 million. While department director, she established the strategy to advance the warfighter into next-generation capabilities. There, she established autonomous capabilities, mission engineering, integrated systems of systems test and evaluation capabilities and advanced electro-optic capabilities that integrated artificial intelligence into shipboard surveillance systems.
Herndon also established a command-level integrated strategy. This established the mission engineering advanced modeling capability across expeditionary warfare, electromagnetic spectrum warfare and strategic missions. She established an integrated multidomain test environment where capabilities could be developed or validated to accelerate fielding of new technology or tactics and techniques and procedures.
Herndon spent five years in industry, where she worked as a process engineer for Eli Lilly and Company and as a manager for COMARCO’s Environmental Services Branch.

Patricia has a BS in chemical engineering from Purdue University. She is Defense Acquisition Workforce Act Level III certified in both program management and systems planning research and development, systems engineering.