Ray Cook

Chief Technology Officer at Rincon Research Corporation

Leesburg, Virginia, United States

About Ray Cook

Ray Cook is Chief Technology Officer at Rincon Research Corporation. Location: Leesburg, Virginia, United States.

Dr. Ray Cook was appointed Director, Ground Enterprise Directorate (GED) at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in June 2022. In this capacity, he leads planning, acquisition, and delivery of state-of-the-art ground systems that connect space systems to operators, mission partners, and end-users to fulfill the requirements of the Intelligence Community (IC), 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, developing and guiding DS&T’s technical cadre, technology, and data strategies; and conducting outreach to leverage CIA’s technical partners. Throughout 2022, Dr. Cook co-led the creation of the CIA’s first CIA Chief Technology Office. From 2015 to 2017, President Obama appointed Dr. Cook as the IC CIO, responsible for the Enterprise IT architecture across the 17 IC Agencies and Elements, and was recognized with both the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal and the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award. From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Cook served as the NRO Director of Mission Operations, responsible for 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 within the DS&T. Before his appointment to the NRO, Dr. Cook led a cross-Agency processing and analysis mission within the CIA, responsible for processing, analyzing, and reporting intelligence from data collected by both IC and 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 and with his second CIA Engineer of the Year award. Dr. Cook has 30 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. In 2003, he was selected 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.

Skills

  • Engineering
  • Digital Signal Processing
  • Electrical Engineering

Additional experience

  • Chief Technology Officer, Space Sector

    Northrop Grumman

    May 2025 – May 2026

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute