Love of Science and Problem-Solving Fuels Career in AI and Machine Learning

The first thing Eliza Mace will tell you about AI is that it's not new. 

"We've been automating processes for decades," she says. "The assembly line and pattern-matching in images are just two examples."

What has changed? The scale and pace—and the ability to widely distribute AI technologies.

"It seems scarier because it's faster, and bigger in scope," says Mace, who leads a MITRE team that adapts AI algorithms to support defense and intelligence missions.

When Mace joined MITRE full-time in 2015, anyone using AI had to understand the math on the backend. "The barriers to entry were immense," she says.

Ten years later, the hurdles and hand-coding are gone. Now, "anyone who knows an open-source language like Python can put AI to work," Mace says. “And the speed of change is incredible."

The challenge is like building a plane while it’s flying—as new plane technology is being developed. But Mace thrives on problem-solving. "I'm happiest when I figure something out."  

That mindset fuels her work developing solutions to inform government AI strategy and architecture. 

A Front-row Seat to Scientific Advances

At 16, Mace read "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?" by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman and science writer Dick Teresi. The book about the elusive ingredient to all matter—the Higgs boson particle—inspired her to become a particle physicist. 

"But it turns out I wasn’t very good at physics," says Mace.

She found out about MITRE at an event in her first year at MIT. She was a three-time intern in our McLean, Va., campus, not far from where she grew up. Mace learned about computer vision—AI that helps computers recognize and analyze objects—during her first internship. She was hooked. 

Today, she applies computer vision and machine learning (ML) to support Intelligence Community and Department of Defense sponsors. 

"It's a 180 from when I started. Early on, we had to drum up interest in ML. Now there's high demand for ML capabilities. Our main job is to make sure it's effective," says Mace, who earned her master's in computer science from Columbia University through MITRE's education benefit.

"I focus on ways to use AI to help analysts do what they do even better," she adds. "That could mean using AI to gather meaningful metrics in a massive area, say, a particular region of Earth—or developing algorithms to prioritize where an analyst looks."  

Applying Science for Public Good

Mace's work on a software architecture analysis caught the eye of her then-division director Cynthia Shelton, who suggested her for the competitive Aspen Security Group Rising Leaders Program in 2024. 

Mace became the first MITRE employee to earn the fellowship. The year-long program brings together a cohort of young professionals to "contribute to the conversation on critical foreign policy issues while honing their leadership skills."

Mace's co-authored capstone paper, AI Model Cards for a Policy Audience, proposes a method for distilling highly technical AI advances for lawmakers and officials to inform decision making.

She's also working on independent research, preparing our Federal AI Sandbox, powered by an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD™ named Judy, to ingest satellite images from a variety of sensor types. 

As a team leader, Mace enjoys big brainstorming sessions, working alongside colleagues to benefit from what she calls the "osmosis of productivity." 

Outside of work, Mace fences (she was a competitive fencer and team captain at MIT) and spends time with her husband and their scrappy rescue dog, Han Solo. She's also a fan of Dungeons & Dragons for fostering on-the-spot creativity. 

About her career at MITRE, Mace says she feels fortunate to be able to do work she enjoys and use her skills to make a difference. 

"I love science, and I love helping even more."