Rachel Grunspan recently retired from the CIA after more than 25 years of service, where she wore many hats—including game and simulation designer, cyber-threat analyst, senior executive, and futurist.

In her last assignment she led a broad innovation effort in human-machine teaming for intelligence which included the future of war-games and developing new operating models for national security. Earlier assignments included Intelligence Community Director for AIM (Augmenting Intelligence Using Machines) and Dean for CIA’s Digital University.

Rachel focused her career on connecting emerging technologies to practical mission needs. She led dozens of future-focused “What If” simulations and games across government, academia, and industry, championed creation of CIA’s first agency-wide extended reality (XR) training lab, and promoted the value of narrative and interactive simulation in venues such as South-By-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive.

She was the co-author (nee Hanig) of the winning 2007 ODNI Galileo Award paper “A National Security Simulations Center”, as well as a recipient of The Presidential Rank Award.
Rachel is also the co-author of “The Computer Book: From the Abacus to Artificial Intelligence – 250 Milestones in the History of Computer Science.”