Jennifer Mills, Ph.D. won a 2022 Managerial Leadership Award, which focuses on people and product management. She has served nearly 17 years in the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and as a federal civilian in the U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy.
Currently, Mills is a supervisory computer engineer attached to the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command (ISEC). Her role requires managing 80-plus direct reports, both civilian and military personnel.
She also leads the refocusing of ISEC's mission and maneuvering the Army’s Digital Transformation away from legacy information technology (IT) systems.
Mills has worked closely with industry leaders, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, and other government agencies to create solutions that could be adapted to accelerate modernization.
Mills’ systems engineering effort aligns with the Army’s network modernization, including cybersecurity initiatives, while enabling information delivery to decision-makers at the speed of relevance to meet warfighter needs.
Mills has proposed transitions to new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)-based software-defined network, virtual desktop infrastructure, and cloud-based hybrid data center modernization.
"Cloud computing allows you to have the data at any time, anywhere, at your fingertips,” Mills said in a 2021 interview. “Not a lot of people realize how important it is until you lose your hard drive, you lose your data, or you cannot find it or cannot access it. Without the brain, you can't do anything and we are delivering the brain capabilities for the Army, so the Army can be prepared for the future,” she said.
Mills was born in South Korea and moved to the United States while in high school. She started working for the government in 2005 and became director of the Fort Huachuca Engineering Directorate in January 2021.
Mills earned a bachelor's degree in computer science in 2001. She also holds a Master of Science in Information Systems and a Master of Business Administration from Hawaii Pacific University.
She completed the Joint Military Professional Education from the Naval War College in 2006 and received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Systems Engineering from George Washington University in 2017.
