CGA Team
Daniel “Rags” Ragsdale, Senior Advisor
Dr. Daniel “Rags” Ragsdale is a Senior Advisor at Cambridge Global Advisors, where he provides expertise in AI strategy, cybersecurity, and national security. One of the nation’s longest-tenured applied AI practitioners, he has been engaged in AI research since the late 1980s, beginning with an M.S. thesis on intelligent tutoring systems (Naval Postgraduate School, 1990), three years as a Research Scientist at the U.S. Army’s AI Research Center, and a Ph.D. dissertation on agent-based intrusion detection (Texas A&M, 2001). He brings more than 45 years of experience translating complex policy frameworks into mission-aligned technical solutions across the White House, Department of Defense, academia, and industry.
Most recently, Dr. Ragsdale served as the Deputy Assistant National Cyber Director at the White House, where he orchestrated implementation of the nation’s inaugural National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy. The initiative influenced more than $100 billion in federal contracting and secured public and private sector commitments to create more than 35,000 new cybersecurity jobs. He led coordination across federal agencies to harmonize national security protocols with emerging AI capabilities.
Prior to the White House, Dr. Ragsdale served as Vice President of Research and DoD Strategy at Two Six Technologies, directing a $125 million portfolio of more than 40 funded research programs including 25+ concurrent DARPA initiatives, several of which were AI-focused. At the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, he served as Principal Director for Cyber and subsequently as Acting Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization, overseeing investment roadmaps across 11 DoD-wide modernization priorities including AI, Quantum Science, and Hypersonics, where he directly supervised the Department’s AI research and development initiatives. He also served as a Program Manager at DARPA, directing advanced research programs including Active Cyber Defense, CINDER, and DCAPS.
Dr. Ragsdale is a retired Army Colonel with 34 years in uniform and combat deployments to Grenada, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is the Founding Director of the Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center and co creator of the first Cyber Defense Exercise at West Point, the model for today’s Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition and CyberPatriot. He currently serves as Global Ambassador for the Global Council on Responsible AI and holds advisory board roles at Sandia National Laboratories and the Technology Advancement Center.
He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, an M.S. in Computer Science from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a B.S. in Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service and the Legion of Merit.