Ray Cook

Dr. Ray Cook was appointed Director, Ground Enterprise Directorate (GED) at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in June 2022. In this capacity, he leads a multi-agency team of acquisition and intelligence professionals to plan, acquire, and deliver state-of-the-art ground systems that connect space systems to space operators, mission partners, and end-users to fulfill the requirements of the Intelligence Community, the Department of Defense, and allied partners.

From 2018 to 2022, Dr. Cook served as the CIA Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) Chief Technology Officer.  As CTO, he developed and guided the DS&T’s technical cadre, developed and communicated the DS&T’s technology and data strategies, and conducted outreach to leverage the power of CIA’s technical partners.

From 2015 to 2017, Dr. Cook was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Intelligence Community (IC) CIO, where he was responsible for the Enterprise IT architecture and strategy across the 17 IC Agencies and Elements, and in particular, for the continued acquisition of the IC Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE).

From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Cook served as the Director of Mission Operations (MOD) within the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). In this capacity, Dr. Cook was responsible for delivering NRO’s mission, including the innovative operations of NRO satellites, data processing, and dissemination systems at the NRO’s mission ground-stations and headquarters elements. In 2014 Dr. Cook was selected as the first Director for the Office of Space Reconnaissance (OSR) within the DS&T.  Through OSR, the DST deploys technically expert staff across all mission areas within the NRO.

Before his appointment to the NRO, Dr. Cook led a cross-Agency processing and analysis mission within the CIA. In this role, he was responsible for processing, analyzing, and reporting intelligence from data collected by both Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD) elements.  He also was responsible for developing the applications and IT infrastructure and services that underpinned this mission, as well as for ensuring compliance with appropriate agency data access and data sharing authorities and policies.  During this assignment, Dr. Cook was recognized as a DNI Fellow (2010) and with his second CIA “Engineer of the Year” award (2009).

Dr. Cook has 26 years of Federal Service. His first assignment in the Agency was with the Office of Research and Development within the DST, where he developed and deployed data collection and processing capabilities against emerging telecommunication signals – for which he was recognized with his first CIA “Engineer of the Year” award (1999).  In 2003, he was selected by the DST to serve as the Chief of R&D and then Chief of Engineering at a major overseas collection installation, where he was responsible for developing new capabilities and operating and maintaining the underlying significant data center infrastructure.

Dr. Cook received undergraduate, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  He is married and has one daughter.