COL Elizabeth Sweet

 Elizabeth Sweet serves as the Defense Engagement Lead for the Pentagon’s commercial technology hub, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). An active U.S. Army Reserve Colonel, she has served in several military operations including Joint Operation Safe Haven Panama, Joint Guardian, Kosovo and Operation Enduring Freedom. In her civilian career, she served as a crime intelligence analyst in South Florida and as an R&D Manager in the Department of Defense as a civilian, providing subject matter expertise in applying science and technology to operations for geographic information, geospatial and imagery science. 

Colonel Sweet most recently served in the Chief Innovation Office in the newly formed 75th Innovation Command, as the Operations & Processes Portfolio Lead, liaison to the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA), and as the Army affiliate of the Undersecretary of Defense Research and Engineering (USD R&E) Joint Reserve Directorate. 

She holds a Bachelor of Russian Language from Florida State University and a Master’s of Science of Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University, with a research focus on innovation, creativity, and technology diffusion in the Intelligence Community.