Bess Dopkeen

Bess Dopkeen is the founder of Keen Edge Strategies, LLC and has worked for two decades in Defense. She recently wrapped up three years as the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering where she championed and guided policy, issues, and programs spanning from basic research through prototyping, experimentation, and transition. Previously Bess was a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee and the majority's lead for the Science and Technology and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction portfolios. Before the Hill she was a senior analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Cost Assessment & Program Evaluation. She led the Defense Innovation Board's 2018 congressionally mandated Software Acquisition and Practices study for the Under Secretary of Acquisition and Sustainment, was the Program Manager for the Cost Assessment Data Enterprise, and ran the Better Data for Acquisition effort for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition. She worked on major analyses for the Secretary including CAPE's national security space launch study, the evolutionary satellite acquisition-efficiency project, and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s national labs labor-cost analysis. Bess holds degrees from Tufts University and the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at National Defense University, where she was a distinguished graduate. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and their two children.