Austen Boroff

Austen Boroff completed her Ph.D. in Security Studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs as a General Wayne A. Downing Scholar. Her research examines U.S. military modernization, organizational adaptation, and the institutional conditions under which defense innovations emerge, endure, or fail. She also studies how government programs designed to reduce technological risk shape innovation in the private sector. She has served as a consultant to the National Academies on reviews of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs and is an International Strategy Forum Fellow.

Boroff has three years of command experience, including service as the inaugural commander of the U.S. Army’s first Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon battery. This experimental organization helped develop and integrate the Army’s long-range hypersonic capability, advancing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. In that role, she collaborated closely with the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, acquisition professionals, and industry partners to accelerate the development and fielding of emerging technologies. Her operational experience includes two deployments to Iraq and assignments across the Indo-Pacific. Her more recent work has focused on nuclear and countering weapons of mass destruction issues.

Her broader professional interests include defense innovation, emerging technologies, deterrence, organizational adaptation, civil-military relations, and the intersection of national security policy and institutional design.

Boroff holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Security Studies from Princeton University, an M.S. in Marketing from the University of Alabama, and a B.S. with honors in International History from the United States Military Academy at West Point.