Biography

Dr. Sobel’s career has emphasized technologies to support national security, counter
WMD, improved big data analytics and far forward medical care in extreme environments
such as special operations, space, high altitude, and diving. She worked for over a decade
helping operationalize counter WMD technology strategies in cooperation with the IDF.

She was a Distinguished Military Graduate from Princeton University’s Army ROTC
program, Distinguished Member of the Technology Staff at Sandia National Laboratories,
Graduate of Air War College and the Army Command and General Staff College. She was
New Mexico Homeland Security Director and Deputy Secretary for Public Safety. She
served as the Senior Assistant to the Chief, National Guard Bureau, (NGB), as well as the
Chief’s Advisor for Civil-Military. She served in the US Army and taught combat medicine
skills to SF Medics (18D) and PJs at Ft. Bragg and Pope AFB. She was a member of the first
Forward Surgical Team and Senior Flight Surgeon for the 57th MEDEVAC, Ft. Bragg.
Support during and post-9/11, and the first Director of Intelligence (J2) for NGB, and
supported Hurricane Katrina humanitarian response. In parallel, she was a member of
the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board.

She was recipient of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine’s Alumni
Association visionary leadership award in 2023 and the Anti-Defamation League’s
Distinguished Public Service Award for conceiving and implementing the first nationally
recognized interfaith First Amendment Working Group while serving as Director of
Homeland Security in New Mexico. She was also awarded the Lubbock, Texas YWCA’s
Women of Excellence (Government category) and the NATO award for lifetime service for
understanding the threats posed by WMD. She is an
Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), recognized
internationally for her pioneering work in telemedicine implementation, having flown as
crew on the first tele-medicine aeroevac demonstration in European Command and
implementation in Antarctica. She served as Guest Scientist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory’s Bioscience Division.

Dr. Sobel was residency trained in Family and Community Medicine at Duke
University Medical Center, and Wright State University’s Aerospace
Medicine/human factors residency program.

She was a senior advisor to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), where led an initiative for AFMIC to predict and counter global infectious
disease challenges. She was part of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.