Adele Merritt

Merritt earned a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Pace University.^[1] She completed a Master of Science and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Rhode Island.^[1] Her 1999 dissertation was titled Advances in Z-cyclic whist and triple whist tournaments.^[2] Norman Joseph Finizio was her doctoral advisor.^[2] Merritt was a national security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.^[1]

Merritt began her career at the National Security Agency as an applied research mathematician.^[1] In addition to holding various positions within the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), she completed a joint duty assignment at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was the principal deputy chief information officer for cyber at the U.S. Department of Energy, and served as a director and acting senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration.^[1] Merritt led a public-private partnership focused on addressing cyber threats to U.S. national security systems and critical infrastructure.^[1] Most recently, she was the program director at MISI, a non-profit focused on advancing cybersecurity innovation and collaboration through partnerships with industry, academia, and government.^[1] In 2022, Merritt was nominated by U.S. president Joe Biden to serve as the associate director of national intelligence and chief information officer.^[1][3] She started in this role on January 24, 2022.^[1][4] She resigned in December 2024 after being named CIO of the National Institutes of Health.^[5]

Merritt and her husband are the parents of twins.^[1]